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TURKEY, GREECE AND THE 
GREAT POWERS 



TURKEY, GREECE 

AND THE 

GREAT POWERS 

A STUDY IN FRIENDSHIP 
AND HATE 



By 
G. F. ABBOTT 

Author of "Turkey in Transition," etc 
Editor of "Greece in Evolution," etc 



WITH MAPS 



NEW YORK 
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY 

MCMXVII 

All rights reserved 



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CONTENTS 

PART I 

CHAP. PAGE 

I The Little Dogs and the Lion . . . . i 
II France and the Turks .... 17 

III Russia and the Turks 54 

IV England and the Turks . . . . . 76 

V The Germanic Powers and Turkey . . . 167 
VI Turkey's Choice ...... 194 

PART II 
I Greece and the Powers . . . . .201 

II Renascence ....... 243 

III England and Greece . . . . . . 274 

IV France and Greece . . . . . .318 

V Russia and Greece . . . . . • 33 1 
VI The Germanic Powers and Greece . • . 342 

Index ......... 381 



Full titles of the books most frequently cited in the following 
pages : — 

"3usbe<3uius : The Four Epistles of Augerius Gislenius Busbequius, 
Concerning his Embassy into Turkey. Done into English. 
London : 1694. 

Hakluyt : The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and 
Discoveries of the English Nation. By Richard Hakluyt. 
Glasgow : 1903-5. 

Hammer : Histoire de l' Empire Ottoman. Par J. de Hammer. 
Traduit de VAllemand par J. J. Hellert. Paris : 1 835-1 843. 

Holland : Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Mace- 
donia, etc., during the years 1812 and 1813. By Henry 
Holland. London : 1815. 

Porter : Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and 
Manners of the Turks. By Sir James Porter. Second 
Edition to which is added The State of the Turkey Commerce 
Considered from its Origin to the Present Time. London : 
1771. 

Purchas : Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes. By 
Samuel Purchas. Glasgow : 1905-7. 

Ricaut : The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire. 
By Sir Paul Ricaut. Sixth Edition. London : 1686. 

Thevenot : The Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant. 
Newly done out of French. London : 1687. 

Tournefort : A Voyage into the Levant. By M. Tournefort. 
London : 1741. 



Vll 



TURKEY, GREECE AND 
THE GREAT POWERS 

PART I 
Chapter I 

THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 

" r I ^HEY are proud, esteeming themselves above all 
other nations . . . and, indeed, they despise all 
other nations in general, and especially those who are 
not of their religion . . . and they commonly call Chris- 
tians dogs." 1 These words, written about 1655, faith- 
fully depict the Turk's habitual attitude towards the 
European. All Western visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 
from the sixteenth century onwards, however widely 
they may differ in their general estimates of the Turk's 
character, agree in testifying to this particular trait in 
his mentality. 2 

Some attribute it to religious fanaticism, others to 
national conceit. But those who call the Turk a fanatic 
forget that the non-Moslem communities under his rule 
have alwaj^s enjoyed a measure of toleration such as 
infidels have seldom experienced in Christian States. 

1 Thevenot, i. 59. 2 Cp. Busbequius, 40; Porter, 249. 

1 



2 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Nor is the average Turk, inherently, more conceited 
than any other human being. The truth seems to be 
that his overweening contempt for us was the product 
of circumstances rather than of nature. It was created, 
not by the influence of one cause, but by the combination 
of many. 

In the first place, as the Sultans, until a comparatively 
recent date, did not keep permanent ambassadors at 
foreign courts, the Turk, while cherishing a very high 
opinion of his own importance, possessed but the vaguest 
ideas on the importance of other nations. Of the strength 
which consists in extent of territory and in number of 
fighting men he knew something ; of the strength which 
is derived from other than material springs he had no 
conception. Nor did the presence of numerous Euro- 
peans in the Ottoman Empire help to correct this er- 
roneous perspective. The profound difference in morals 
and manners that separated all foreigners from the Turk, 
and the ignorance of each other's language which pre- 
cluded direct and free social intercourse, were calculated 
not to remove but to foster prejudice. The Turk, while 
conscious of his own virtues, had no means of discover- 
ing the virtues of other people. What he saw were their 
vices. The insobriety of the Franks, their bitter animosi- 
ties, and other weaknesses of an equally obvious descrip- 
tion, inspired him with scorn and deepened an antipathy 
that had its origin in the inevitable antagonism between 
the Mohammedan invaders of Europe and Christendom. 

The nations which had neglected, through their 
disunion, to save Constantinople, did not easily resign 
themselves to its loss. Even after the Popes had got 
tired of preaching holy wars against the enemies of God, 
many Christian potentates continued to nourish the 
dream of chasing them back to the continent whence 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 3 

they came. The knights of Malta never ceased to plun- 
der the ships of the Grand Signor's subjects and to 
enslave their crews ; thus keeping the old flame of hatred, 
kindled by the Crusades, alive — reminding the Turk 
that there could be no peace between Christendom and 
Islam. And it must be remembered that the knights 
of Malta were a body composed of representatives of 
every European nation and supported by revenues 
drawn from every European country. These efforts 
irritated the Turk, while their futility lowered his opinion 
of their authors and strengthened his belief in his own 
superiority. Whenever the danger of a coalition of the 
Christian Powers against Turkey was mentioned to the 
Sultan's Ministers, they laughed, comparing their own 
sovereign to a Hon and the kings of other nations to little 
dogs, " which," they said, " may serve to rouse and 
discompose the quiet and majesty of the lion but can 
never bite him." * 

Thus a little knowledge and a great ignorance con- 
spired to implant in the Turk's mind a habit of insolence, 
which grew with the growth of his power, which, as is the 
way of such habits, survived its root, and which for more 
than two hundred years cost the Europeans who had 
dealings with him many sorrows. 



The various Frank colonies in Turkey lived, until the 
other day, under the protection of special treaties — 
known by the name of Capitulations — which enabled 
them to retain their nationality as long as they chose, 
to be governed by their own ambassadors and consuls 
without any interference from the Ottoman judicial 
authorities, and to conduct their business on clearly 

1 Ricaut, 171. 



4 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

defined terms. The Turk had found this system already 
established in the Greek Empire, and adopted it as he 
adopted so many other Byzantine customs, good and 
bad. It was an arrangement which, scrupulously ob- 
served, guaranteed to foreign residents privileges and 
immunities not only incomparably greater than any 
known to the Sultan's Christian subjects, but even 
greater than those which Frenchmen, Englishmen, and 
other Europeans enjoyed in their own countries. But 
the Turks were pleased to regard the Capitulations as 
mere tokens of the Grand Signor's magnanimity — to be 
observed at his discretion, to be interpreted according 
to his convenience, and to be withdrawn at his caprice. 

In the circumstances, it is not surprising to find that 
his officials, from the highest to the lowest, looked upon 
the Frank merchants in their midst as fair game. Arbi- 
trary demands, often supported by false charges (avanias), 
were of almost daily occurrence. When the victims 
complained of these infringements of their rights to the 
Porte, they were told : "Do you not breathe the Sultan's 
air, and will you pay nothing for the privilege ? " 

The ambassadors at Constantinople soon learnt the 
utter uselessness of appealing to treaties or tribunals in 
a land where might was right, and, unless their Govern- 
ments were prepared to go to war, they had nothing else 
to appeal to : nothing, except the oppressor's cupidity. 
Similia similibus curantur : the love of gold which 
prompted the injury was made to remedy it. The annals 
of European diplomacy in Turkey reek with bakshish. 
There is not one Western representative of any nationality 
or epoch who has not left on record his faith in this 
homoeopathic treatment. The Imperial envoy Busbecq 
found in the sixteenth century that " there is no other 
way of treating with a Turk but by opening the purse- 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 5 

strings, as soon as any Christian comes among them ; 
neither must he think to shut them again, till he go out 
of their country. . . . Without this open-handedness 
there were no more living among them, for strangers, 
than in the most desolate and uninhabited places. . . . 
But with the bait of liberality you may catch a Turk 
at any time " (39-40). A hundred years later our honest 
Ricaut, after stating that " this way of negotiating by 
presents and gratuities is so much in custom amongst 
the Turks that, to speak truly, scarce anything can 
be obtained without it," proceeds to advise foreign 
ministers how to bribe " with honour, decency, and 
advantage " — to wit : " There are, and have always 
been, two or three powerful persons in this Court, which 
in all times carry the principal sway and command of all. 
These must necessarily be treated with respect and often 
sweetened with gratuities : he that hath money may 
doubtless make friends when he needs them, and with 
that secure his Capitulation and his privilege, purchase 
justice, and if his stock will hold out, act anything that 
can reasonably be imagined " (171). A hundred years 
later still, the English Ambassador Porter sings the praises 
of " the soothing palliative of a golden unction : this 
never fails of success," and, speaking of the Capitulations 
specifically, observes : " the only way to support them 
is by prudence, and a circumspect behaviour : and a 
constant annual expense of presents " (229, 232). Even 
when an Imperial decree was obtained, ordering the 
local authorities to make redress, it did not follow that it 
would be obeyed. The spoliation of the Franks had come 
to be considered not so much a venial sin as a natural 
process, hallowed by venerable tradition : the very 
persons who condemned it openly, in secret condoned 
it. Often the document contained " private marks, 



6 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

which signified ' Do as you will,', or ' Let it lie by.' " x 
In brief, after purchasing a favourable verdict from the 
Sultan, you could only have it executed by purchasing the 
good will of his pashas on the spot. The meekness with 
which the Powers of Europe bore this oppression naturally 
tended to perpetuate it. The Turk's appetite for bribes, 
stimulated by gratification, became more and more 
exacting as time went on, and his insolence, encouraged 
by the Frank's " prudence," attained such dimensions 
that the surprising thing is, not that the treaties were so 
systematically violated, but that they were observed at all. 
No doubt the Turk's own prudence set a limit to his 
rapacity, and he chose to shear rather than to slay the 
sheep that grew the golden fleece. 

Similar vexations and extortions were inflicted upon 
the Franks who travelled about the country. On every 
road they encountered officers who levied arbitrary and 
exorbitant duties, ostensibly for maintaining the high- 
ways in good repair and guarding them against rogues 
and robbers ; but, " instead of being a safeguard, 
prove the greatest rogues and robbers themselves," 
writes a plaintive English parson of the seventeenth 
century. 2 Private Turks copied the manners of the 
public functionaries. One English traveller tells how 
on his journey from Nicosia to Famagusta he met four 
Turks who demanded that he should give them his 
mount. He refused, and they in revenge pulled him 
out of the saddle by the heels, beat him " most pitifully " 
and left him on the road " almost for dead." * The very 

1 Porter, 240. 

3 Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, 1697, 
(Early Travels in Palestine, Ed. by T. Wright), 386. Cp. the 
experiences of the French botanist Tournefort in Armenia about 
the same time, iii. 99. 

3 William Lithgow (1614), in Purchas, x. 478. 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 7 

muleteers were able to rob their European employers with 
perfect impunity, 3 and the "Tartars" to take liberties 
with the persons they escorted. 2 

The city rabble always and everywhere made a point 
of flouting the European passer-by, jeering at him, pelt- 
ing him with rubbish, jostling him, striking off his hat, 
and sometimes knocking him down, just for pleasure. 3 
Such were the conditions under which the Franks lived 
even in the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Much 
harder was their lot in towns distant from the seat of 
the Sultan's authority. Among these Cairo and Alexan- 
dria, perhaps, carried off the palm for brutality. 

In those Eastern cities the Franks occupied among 
the Moslems the position which the Jews occupied among 
the Christians in Western cities. They dwelt in a sort 
of Ghetto : a Khan which was " locked up by the Turkes 
at noones and at nights, for fear that the Franks should 
suffer or offer any outrage." 4 

Every Frank was obliged to dismount when he met in 
the street a Turk of quality : if he did not do so volun- 
tarily, the great man's cavases would drag him off by 
force and drub him with their cudgels. But to be a 
blackguard it was not necessary to be a man of quality : 
it was enough to be a Moslem. Any follower of the 
Prophet might spit into a Christian's face, belabour 
him with his stick, even stab him with a knife. The 
Frank dared not express his resentment by a look, much 
less defend himself. The least attempt at self-defence 
was enough to bring upon him a false charge of assault ; 
and in Turkish law to lift a hand against a True Believer 

1 George Sandys (1610), in Purchas, viii. 235. 

2 Holland (1812), 270. 

8 Sandys, 108 ; A Picturesque Tour through part of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, by an Italian Gentleman (Constantinople, Dec. 
1788), 144. 4 Sandys, vi. 186. 



8 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

was a crime that could only be expiated by the amputation 
of the offending limb. Or the accusation might take the 
favourite form of an indictment for blasphemy against 
the Mohammedan religion : a crime for which a Christian 
was given the option between cremation and conversion 
to Islam. All these charges, however, could be com- 
pounded for by money, which sufficiently accounts for 
their popularity ; and if the individual concerned was 
too poor, the whole community to which he belonged 
had to pay for him. 1 

In times of public festivity, such as the Bairam, when 
the lower classes of the Turkish population abandoned 
themselves to boisterous rejoicings, it was particu- 
larly unsafe for a European to show himself abroad. 
No matter what his rank might be, he was sure to fall a 
victim to the insolence, if not to the violence, of the mob. 2 
Even the ambassadors at Constantinople at such times 
did not escape insult. Often a Turk would cross the 
street to give them a push, accompanied with the common 
epithet of detestation and contempt " Giaour ! " and they 
found it impossible to obtain from the Ottoman Govern- 
ment satisfaction, or even a bare expression of sym- 
pathy. When once an ambassador complained to the 
Porte, he was curtly told that it was his fault : " am- 
bassadors should not expose themselves in a crowd, 
but acquaint the Porte when they have business abroad, 
and then they would be properly secured from insult." s 
They would be secured by a guard of Janissaries ; but, 
we are told, " the Janissaries even, who attend the 

1 See Thevenot, i. 252-255. " Of the Franks that live in 
Egypt, and the Avanies which are put upon them ' ' ; James 
Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (3rd. Ed. 1813) 
i. 101 ; vi. 531-534- 

* Thevenot, i. 46, 63 ; Maundrell, 412 ; Tournefort, i. 47. 

» Porter, 156. 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 9 

ambassadors, have so little respect for their masters that 
they never rise when they pass by." * 



Indeed, nowhere can the disdain in which the Christian 
Powers were held by the Turk be more clearly seen than 
in the treatment meted out to their official representa- 
tives. The humiliations to which those august person- 
ages were subjected by the Sultan and his Ministers until 
our grandfathers' time would be incredible to us if it 
were not for the unanimous evidence of a cloud of wit- 
nesses. Those humiliations grew in severity as the Turk's 
spirit grew in arrogance, and it is hard to say which of 
the two things affords more food for wonder : the Turk's 
capacity for inflicting, or the Frank's for enduring, con- 
tumely. The progress of this growth can easily be traced. 

When the Ambassador of the Duke of Milan presented 
himself to Murad II at Adrianople in 1433, he was received 
with all the courteous affability to which the envoy of 
a friendly prince was entitled. The Sultan, we read, 
rose from his couch, descended two of the four or five 
steps of the dais, and taking him by the hand, asked how 
his good brother and neighbour the Duke fared in health. 
After answering, the ambassador was conducted back 
to his seat, and the Sultan waited for him to sit down 
before he reseated himself. 2 

In significant contrast to this stand all the narratives 
of ambassadorial audiences subsequent to the capture of 
Constantinople. Upon reaching the capital, the foreign 

1 A Picturesque Tour, etc., 146. 

2 Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, Travels during the years 1432 
and 1433. {Early Travels in Palestine, ed. by T. Wright, 
351). Of course, I assume that the good Bertrandon is speaking 
the truth, and not letting his pride as a Christian run away with 
his honesty as an historian. 

8 



io TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

envoy was first received by the Grand Vizier, who lolled 
on his sofa, while the guest had to sit on a stool. After 
a few stereotyped phrases of welcome, the customary 
compliments of the caftan (robe of honour), sweetmeats, 
coffee, sherbet, and perfume were presented to him. 
But the moment he rose to go, the Grand Vizier and his 
attendants clapped their hands in derision, and two 
officers, placing themselves on either side of the departing 
guest, attempted to make him turn round and bow to the 
Vizier, who never stirred off his corner on the sofa. An 
ambassador poor in spirit might be surprised into com- 
pliance ; but he who had a proper sense of what was due 
to his character stiffened his back and kept on his way, 
pulling along the officers. In this undignified fashion 
His Excellency reached the door, and was hustled and 
hissed out of the room. 

Next came the audience with the Grand Signor himself— 
an ordeal which made this preliminary mortification 
pale into almost a pleasant memory. The time appointed 
for the ambassador's transit across the Golden Horn, 
from Pera to Stambul, was the dawn, or even an hour 
before daybreak. On landing with his suite, he was con- 
ducted to a mean house destined for that purpose, and 
climbing up a staircase that was no better than a ladder, 
was ushered into a room " fit rather for the reception 
of a Polish Jew than for a man of his dignity." * After 
waiting for some time in that miserable chamber, he was 
informed that the Grand Vizier had sent word that he 
was ready to start for the Palace. He climbed down 
the ladder, mounted his horse, and the cavalcade pro- 
ceeded at a slow pace to the Vizier's door. Whether it 
rained, hailed, or snowed, the ambassador and his suite 
had to remain on horseback in the street, to watch the 
1 Porter, 163. 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION n 

Vizier's stately procession, and to salute him and his 
whole cortege as they went past. When they were near 
the gate of the Palace, the ambassador was allowed to 
advance slowly in the same direction. On his arrival, he 
was shown into the Divan, or Council Chamber, where he 
found the Vizier lolling, as usual, on a sofa, while he was 
placed, as usual, on a backless, rickety old stool in the 
middle of the room. Upon that seat he remained for at 
least two hours, hearing the discussion of cases he did 
not understand. If it was a pay-day for the Janissaries — 
and it generally was, for the Turks chose that day in order 
to impress the foreign visitor with the strength and 
wealth of their Empire — he was entertained with the 
sight of over two thousand yellow bags of money told out 
and distributed to the soldiery. This performance lasted 
at least four hours ; so that, to quote the same martyr 
again, "in a cold day, without a furred coat, his very 
vitals may freeze, and at any time the spine of his back 
must suffer cruelly, for he has nothing to lean against to 
support or ease it." 

A lightning-speed banquet followed : fifty dishes laid 
on the table one after another at half-minute intervals, 
and whisked off almost untasted. The Grand Signor 
looked upon this performance, unseen, through a lattice, 
and as soon as it was over, adjourned to the audience-room. 
Thereupon the ambassador, preceded by the Chaoush- 
Bashi or Captain of the Guard, who acted as Master of the 
Ceremonies, with all his officers, and followed by his own 
suite, marched out into the court-yard. But before he 
had gone far he was stopped and made to sit down 
under a tree — on a bench consisting of a single board on 
which at other times grooms, ostlers, and scullions lounged 
(" though," remarks Sir James Porter, " it sometimes 
serves them for less decent purposes"). On that bench, 



12 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

whether wet or dry, clean or dirty, His Excellency and 
attendants sat and were invested with their robes of 
honour ; after which, two Capuji-bashis seized each of 
them by the shoulders and marched them across the court- 
yard, followed by the gifts which the ambassador had 
brought for the Sultan. At the door of the audience- 
room the gifts were handed over to the officers appointed 
to receive them, who carried them in, holding them above 
their heads as high as they could, so that the Grand 
Signor and his whole Court might see them. 

At a certain distance from the lofty and canopied sofa 
on which sat the Sultan — turbaned, bejewelled, and 
cross-legged — the two Capuji-bashis, laying their hands 
upon the ambassador's neck, forced him to bend thrice, 
until his forehead almost touched the ground (" wiped 
the dust of the sublime threshold with his face," is the 
pleasant expression used by the Turkish historians) ; 
then, raising him up again, they retired to the farther 
end of the room. The ambassador, left standing, deliv- 
ered a brief address in his own language, which the Drago- 
man translated into Turkish. The Grand Signor put 
on what a seventeenth century narrator describes as 
" a most severe, terrible, stately look," and, according 
to another witness, " eyed the ambassador askew," 
while turning an ostentatiously listless ear to his oratory. 
Next the ambassador's credentials were handed to the 
Grand Vizier, who laid them reverently upon the cushion 
on the Sultan's right hand. The Sultan would cast a 
scornful glance at the royal message and say a few words 
to the Vizier, who would advance to the middle of the 
room and answer the ambassador with some formal 
banalities, which the Dragoman interpreted. If the 
Grand Signor happened to be in an exceptionally sulky 
mood, this answer was compressed into the single word 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 13 

" Giuzel — good." And the audience was over — in less 
than five minutes. 1 

The poor Excellency was at last free to take his weary- 
bones away. He returned home physically exhausted, 
mentally disgusted, indignant or chastened, according to 
individual temperament — to write to his friends in 
Europe how overrated was the glory of representing a 
Christian Majesty at the Moslem Court, to give vent to 
his rage in impotent anathemas against the Unspeakable 
Turk, or, more often, to pretend that nothing disagreeable 
had happened to him. 2 

In sad harmony with this initial abasement was the 
ambassador's treatment throughout his residence at 
Constantinople. It was incessantly repeated to him 
that he lived there on sufferance, and that the hospitality 
he enjoyed, such as it was, would cease the moment the 



1 The Rev. John Covel timed Sir John Finch's audience, in 
1674, by his pulse, and found that it took exactly 248 beats. 
Diary, 266. Half a century before, Sir Thomas Roe summed up 
the performance in one sentence : "I spake to a dumb image." 
Negotiations in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte (1621-1628), 37. 

2 All these varieties of idiosyncracy can be found reflected in the 
numerous accounts of ambassadorial receptions left to us. For in- 
stance, Ricaut, with unconscious humour, adds to his narrative the 
following comment : "This was the manner of the audience given 
to the Earl of Winchilsea, when Ambassador there for His Majesty, 
and is the form used to others who come from a Prince equally 
honoured and respected," 160. In reading other descriptions we 
must bear in mind Sir James Porter's warning : " Personal 
vanity, or national pride, has not permitted Christian writers to 
set this ceremonial in its true light ; nay, some ambassadors have 
been for softening and palliating the worst of its indecorum," 169. 
However, in fairness to the Turk, it should be noted that this 
offensive treatment was not of his own invention. He copied it 
from the Greeks, who in their turn seem to have borrowed it from 
the Persians. Both in its spirit and in many of its details the 
ritual described above has its prototype in the ceremonies of the 
Byzantine Court. (See Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, ch. liii.) All that the Turk did was to better the 
instruction. 



14 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Porte conceived the least suspicion of his friendliness. 
Negotiations between him and the Sultan's headstrong 
and hot-tempered ministers frequently degenerated into 
altercations. On such occasions the best policy for the 
envoy who valued his self-respect was, not to attempt 
to reason, but to possess his soul in patience, opposing 
to the pashas' passionate vehemence all the imperturb- 
ability at his command, and ending with the one argument 
to which no Turk ever refused to listen. Infinitely worse 
became his position when there occurred any political 
incident calculated to rouse the wrath of the Porte against 
him personally, or against the Government which he 
represented. 

The inviolability of the ambassadorial character forms 
part of Mohammedan as of all other international law, 
and the Turks themselves by their maxim, Elchi zaval 
yokdir (" Hurt not an ambassador "), acknowledged 
in theory the foreign agent's right to protection and 
respect. But in practice they allowed themselves con- 
siderable latitude of interpretation. It was suspected 
that European envoys had a greater liberty of action 
than they admitted — that they were empowered to bar- 
gain as plenipotentiaries. To get, therefore, out of them 
the full measure of their capacity for giving, the Sultan's 
ministers had recourse to the most revolting methods. 
Their diplomacy consisted in flying into a passion, 
covering the ambassador with the coarsest abuse, and 
soon passing from invective to threats, or, if the am- 
bassador was not very careful, even to blows. But the worst 
came when all the resources of diplomacy were exhausted. 
The Turkish idea was that an ambassador was not only 
a spokesman for his Government, but also a surety for 
its good behaviour. He was a hostage in the Grand 
Signor's hands. Accordingly, as soon as they decided 



THE LITTLE DOGS AND THE LION 15 

on hostilities with a European Power, they began the 
war by assaulting its representative. The wretched 
ambassador was seized and cast into the Seven Towers — 
an ancient Byzantine fortress which after the capture of 
Constantinople had become a kind of Ottoman Bastille. 
Sometimes the captive might, by dint of powerful influ- 
ence exerted on his behalf, seconded by enormous bak- 
shish, succeed in getting himself transferred to a less 
hideous jail, or he might be granted the alternative 
of accompanying the Ottoman armies in their campaigns 
against his own country — " as a barbarous trophy 
in the time of their successes and as a means at hand to 
reconcile and mediate when evil fortune compels them 
to composition," says Ricaut. But as a rule he was kept 
in the Seven Towers as long as the war lasted, the harsh- 
ness of his confinement varying with the vicissitudes of 
the Sultan's arms. It was in vain that friends and foes 
alike cried out against such a barbarous practice : the 
Lion took no heed of the barkings of dogs which could 
not bite. 1 

To sum up : Until a long succession of misfortunes 

1 The last victim of this brutal custom was the aged French 
Ambassador, who on news of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt reach- 
ing the Porte (August 2, 1798) was thrown into the fortress and 
remained there for three years. The first diplomatist to taste the 
pleasure of being given a passport instead of a prison-cell was the 
Russian Ambassador Italinsky (Dec. 14, 1806) — thanks to the 
energetic efforts of Napoleon's representative Sebastiani and of 
his English colleague Arbuthnot, who, somehow, managed to co- 
operate in a matter concerning the common dignity of all Powers. 
Thus ended, at last, a disgrace to which Europe had the folly 
and the meanness to submit for over two centuries. It is inter- 
esting to note that so late as 1877 the idea of reviving the custom 
for the benefit of the Russian Charge d'Affaires, though not 
seriously discussed, was actually hinted at by some of the Turkish 
Ministers : See Nelidow's " Souvenirs d'avant et d'apres la 
Guerre de 1 877-1878," in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 
1915, p. 277. 



16 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

beat the Sultans into a sort of sullen civility, all European 
nations found in them rude and grasping hosts who knew 
no law but their own whims. No foreigner ever was a 
hero to the Turk. And yet there were few Turks who 
did not entertain, behind their insolent attitude towards 
all the foreigners with whom they came in touch, a mental 
reservation that some of them were more vile than 
others. Essentially, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Russians, 
and Germans might all be dogs ; but there are degrees of 
caninity. To trace these subtle differentiations to their 
historic sources, and to show their bearing upon the 
present European situation, will be my endeavour in the 
following pages. 



Chapter II 

FRANCE AND THE TURKS 

THE first great Western Power to establish friendly 
relations with Turkey was France. In 1517, 
Francis I, in deference to papal wishes, had entered into 
an alliance with the Emperor Maximilian and Charles I 
of Spain against the common enemy of Christendom. 
But nothing came of that project : the conflicting ambi- 
tions of the European Powers proved then, as they had 
often done before and were to do again in the future, 
too strong for an effective Concert. Two years after that 
stillborn league the Kings of France and Spain fell out 
over the succession to the Imperial crown, left vacant by 
the death of Maximilian. Charles won, and thenceforth 
Francis became his sworn enemy. In 1536 he joined 
Suleiman the Magnificent against his former ally, and 
presently the Christian world was treated to the edifying 
spectacle of a Christian town, Nice, being sacked by 
the united French and Turkish forces. 

The amity planted by Francis was assiduously tended 
by his successors, and for centuries " the most Christian 
King " distinguished himself as the most zealous satellite 
of the Sultan. It is amusing to meet among his am- 
bassadors to the Porte even abbes and bishops. 1 The 

1 E.g. Francois de Noailles, Bishop of Acqs, and his brother the 
Abbe of l'lsle, in 1573-1575 ; the Abbe de Girardin in 1688. 

17 



18 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Turks showed their appreciation by bestowing upon the 
French monarch the title of "Padishah," which they 
denied to all other European sovereigns ; by admitting, in 
the earlier days, his representatives to their secret councils ; 
and by extending to his subjects the mercantile benefits 
reserved for the most favoured nation. The French, as 
was natural, made the most of this hard-earned ascen- 
dancy, and while promoting commercial interests, they 
did not neglect the sectarian. Under the aegis of her 
Eldest Son the Catholic Church throve amazingly in the 
Levant : Roman monasteries and nunneries multiplied 
both on the mainland and in the islands ; and Latin 
missionaries of all denominations — Dominicans and Fran 
ciscans, Capuchins and Jacobins, Carmelites, Cordeliers, 
and Jesuits — were everywhere busily engaged in enlarging 
St. Peter's dominion. 

For all that, no European nation was more heartily 
detested by the Turks, and none suffered more from 
Turkish arrogance. There could be little real sympathy 
between the vivacious, talkative Frenchman and the 
stolid, taciturn Osmanli ; and, in fact, there was none. 
Even the recognition of common interests failed to bridge 
over the chasm fixed by discrepant temperaments ; 
and the discord engendered by psychological incompa- 
tibility was heightened by other causes. The Turk 
might have had no objection to the activity of the Catho- 
lic missionaries as long as it was limited to the sphere of 

Among the French Consuls, too, the clerical element made itself 
conspicuous. Here is the portrait of one, drawn by the incisive 
pen of George Sandys in 1610 : " The Vice-Consul (at Alexandria) 
keepes a table for Merchants, he himselfe a Magnifico, lesse liber- 
all of his presence, then industrious to pleasure ; yea, rather 
stately then proud ; expecting respect, and meriting good-will : 
that was a Priest, and would be a Cardinall ; with the hopes 
whereof, they say, that he feasteth his ambition." Purchas, vi. 
186. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 19 

religion. So far as he was concerned, rival idolaters 
could squabble to their hearts' content : what mattered 
it to him whether the dog worried the hog, or the hog the 
dog ? But these apostles in the East, as elsewhere, 
supplemented their spiritual propaganda with political 
intrigue, which excited the suspicions of the Porte. The 
antagonists of France at Constantinople were not slow 
to work upon the Sultan's susceptibilities. They pointed 
out to him that the missionaries instilled in the people 
of their persuasion a spirit of sedition and rebellion ; 
that they were so many secret agents and spies, who, 
under the cloak of religious zeal, were promoting the 
designs of the princes who supported them. These 
insinuations opened the eyes of the pashas, often with 
disastrous results to French prestige. 

We have a good example of this perennial cause of 
trouble in an early seventeenth-century drama, wherein 
the English ambassador played a leading part. Caught 
in the act of hatching a plot against the peace of the 
Ottoman Empire, the Jesuits of Constantinople were 
arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to banishment. 
Similar commands were issued for the expulsion of 
all the members of the order scattered over the Empire. 
The French ambassador, in a transport of rage, threatened 
to break off diplomatic relations and to leave Turkey 
with the monks. The Sultan's ministers, though they 
could ill afford to lose any friends at that time, remained 
firm, and the Sultan expressed his astonishment that his 
ancient and good friend, the King of France, should 
make the toleration of traitors a condition for the con- 
tinuance of his friendship. Thereupon the French 
ambassador sealed his merchants' warehouses, interdicted 
trade, and went on storming at the pashas. But to no 
purpose. Three out of the five Jesuits, chained " in 



20 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

collars of iron " and well guarded, were put on board a 
barque and sent off to Chios, there to be shipped for 
France — " never to return upon pain of forewarned 
death." And the French ambassador, his English rival 
is happy to be able to report, " rests in contumely, 
sufficiently mortified. He continues to interdict trade 
and vents his rage on his own poor subjects, neither 
suffering their loaden ships to go out, nor one to come in 
to unlade. So that they pray against him as in the 
litany, ' from famine and pestilence libera nos, Do- 
mine.' " l But the paean was premature, and the 
victory exaggerated. No sooner had the writer of this 
joyous report left Constantinople than the Jesuits " ob- 
tained from the Grand Signor leave again to reside and 
exercise their function in the same college as freely as 
before." 2 

At the close of the same century the Turks had fresh 
cause for seeing in Catholicism an influence prejudicial 
to their rule. In 1694 the Latins of Chios assisted the 
Venetians in taking the principal castle of the island. 
Next year the Turks recovered it and wreaked a terrible 
vengeance on the Catholic inhabitants. Some of their 
churches were demolished, others were converted into 
mosques or inns. Their monasteries were confiscated 
and the monks and priests, together with their flocks, 
were subjected to cruel persecution. When the Venetian 
War was over, the Grand Signor ordered all the islands 
of the Archipelago to be visited, and the titles of the 
Catholic bishops examined. Some of these prelates were 

1 Sir Thomas Roe to Lord Conway, J an ' 26 ; Feb. -2_ ; 

Feb. 5 19 

March X, i62|. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 14. 
17 ° 

2 Sir Peter Wyche to Lord Conway, July — , 1628. Ibid. 

22 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 21 

found to be without a title, and their bishoprics were 
abolished. At Milo the last Latin bishop had to pawn 
the chalice, mitre, and all other ornaments of his cathe- 
dral ; and he would have starved to death had not the 
King of France allowed him a pension. 1 

These occurrences, and occurrences like these, made so 
profound an impression upon the Turkish Government, 
its subjects, and its functionaries that throughout the 
Empire the Catholic missionary generally, and the Jesuit 
more especially, was treated as a secret enemy. Even 
on the remote frontiers of Armenia the local officials 
reserved their most exquisite methods of ill-usage and 
spoliation for these itinerant apostles, and, lest any 
should escape them, they were in the habit of uncovering 
the heads of European travellers, to see whether a lay hat 
did not conceal a clerical tonsure. 2 

An equally frequent cause of friction between thei 
Porte and the French representatives was piracy. The' 
waters of the Levant in the seventeenth century, and 
more particularly during the Cretan War (1 645-1 669), 
teemed, and its harbours were cloyed, with Frank cor- 
sairs, many of whom owed allegiance to the king who 
boasted of being the first and firmest ally of the Sultan. 
These gentry — often members of the noblest families 
in France — did not think it necessary to spare the ships 
and subjects of their sovereign's friend, but gloried in 
their ability to harass the Grand Signor's galleys afloat 
and to terrorize his officials ashore. They used to bring 
their prizes to the islands of the Archipelago, sell the 
plunder to the islanders, usurp the authority of the 
Turkish judges, have a good time at everybody's expense, 
and, on leaving, seize the Sultan's governors by the beard 

1 Tournefort, i. 163 ; ii. 49-51. 

2 Ibid, iii. 100. 



22 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and carry them off to their ships as slaves. 1 The French 
consuls entertained these pirates at dinner, supplied them 
with provisions and pilots, and generally cherished them 
as they did the French priests, and from the same 
patriotic motives. 2 

A single incident will throw a more vivid light on the 
complex skein of French diplomatic activity in the 
Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth century than 
any exhaustive catalogue of recurrent crises. At Christ- 
mas, 1673, M. de Nointel, the French ambassador at the 
Porte, who spent much of his time travelling about 
the Archipelago, 3 visited Antiparos and descended into 
the grotto for which that island is famous, attended by a 
cortege of Capuchins and corsairs. By his order one of 
the stalactite columns was turned into an altar : torches 
were planted in various nooks and crevices ; and a 
midnight mass was celebrated. After passing three 
days in that picturesque chapel, the ambassador departed 
with his priests and pirates, leaving behind him an in- 
scription to commemorate the event for the edification 
of Christian heretics and Ottoman infidels. 4 

1 Ibid, i. 160-162, 187, 268. From English official sources we 
get many illustrations of this curious situation. I will quote 
one : " They [i.e. the Turks] have lately sustained a great loss 
at sea, their Alexandrian fleet being met by a squadron of Corsairs 
(reported French by those that escaped), consisting of 17 sail, 
who have taken and destroyed the greatest part of them." Sir 
Daniel Harvey to Lord Arlington, June 19, 1669. S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey. No. 19. The dispatch is accompanied by a list of French 
succours to the Venetians in Crete. See also Ricaut's Memoirs, 
(1679), 234, 249, 250-252, 263-269. 

2 Tournefort, i. 267. 

3 See L'odyssie d'un ambassadeur ; voyages du marquis de 
Nointel, 1670-80. By A. Vandal (1900). 

4 Tournefort, i. 204. The association between French monks 
and pirates under official auspices was a common phenomenon. 
The Capuchins of Milo had their convent demolished by the Turks 
fpr hiding the plunder made by the corsairs, The§e contributed 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 23 

Following in the wake of these sportsmen of the deep 
(for so their admiring compatriots regarded them), com- 
mon French sea-captains would sometimes abuse the 
confidence reposed^in them by carrying Turkish cargoes, 
not to the ports for which they were bound by contract, 
but to Leghorn and there selling them on their own 
account. The Sultan considered that the French nation 
on land should suffer for the bad faith of their fellow- 
countrymen at sea ; and his officials stretched the law 
of retaliation so as to include all Franks alike : for were 
they not all " one kind of dirt " ? A case in point 
occurred about 1655, in Egypt, when one morning all the 
consuls in Cairo were dragged out of their beds like 
thieves, and, just as they were — one in his slippers 
and another in his nightcap — were mounted on sorry 
nags and, amidst a tempest of execrations and missiles 
from the Cairene mob, were led to prison. They had 
to be ransomed by their unhappy nationals, who, of course, 
were also forced to make good the loss of the cargoes, 
with ample interest. 1 

The Porte presently improved upon this method by 
forcing the French ambassador to stand surety not only for 
the good faith but even for the good fortune of his sea- 
faring compatriots. What this entailed may be judged 
by one example. At the beginning of 1668 a French 
vessel, carrying the Grand Signor's soaps, left Sidon for 
Constantinople. In the course of the voyage she was 
taken by the Venetian or some other navy hostile to 
the Sultan. Immediately the ambassador was called 
upon to pay 30,000 dollars ; and the French ships that 
were at the moment taking in goods at Smyrna hurried 

towards its rebuilding, together with the French merchants, and 
the King of France. Ibid. 160. 
1 Thevenot, i. 253. 



24 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

out of the port, some not one-third laden, to avoid 
bearing part of that other load. Similarly the pashas, 
arguing that they were entitled to as much help from 
their friends as were their enemies, pressed all the French 
ships they could lay hands on into their service, compelling 
them to transport provisions and men to Crete. 1 

Rascality, needless to say, was not confined to one 
side only. The Barbary corsairs continued to be the 
Sultan's allies even after they had ceased to be his sub- 
jects in anything but the name. Turkey, which owed 
her ephemeral maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean 
to the Khaireddins and the Torghuds, always looked to 
the successors of those distinguished scoundrels for 
assistance, direct or indirect, in her interminable feuds 
with the naval Powers of Southern Europe. Therefore 
the Porte, while readily admitting that its African vassals 
were rogues, neither could punish them itself nor would 
it permit any one else to do so. The Grand Signor's 
policy was well summed up by one of our own ambas- 
sadors : " He publicly seems to disavow the pirates of 
Barbary, yet covertly and underhand to cherish and 
encourage them to weaken and spoil the Christians." 2 
The French, who were among the greatest sufferers from 
the scourge, after failing to obtain redress for their 
wrongs or restitution of their captives from their friend 
at Constantinople, tried, every now and then, to take the 
law into their own hands. The consequences were as 
unpleasant for them as their cause was just. One instance 
will suffice. 

1 See letters from Messrs. Thomas Dethick & Co. Smyrna, 

7 Feb., i March, 166^. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 
8 

2 Lord Winchilsea to Secretary Nicholas, May 24, 1662. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 25 

In 1 681, Louis XIV, baited beyond endurance by the 
outrages committed by the North African miscreants, 
not only upon the ships but even upon the coasts of 
France, sent out a fleet under Vice-Admiral de Quesne 
with orders to destroy the pirate galleys wheresoever he 
might find them. De Quesne carried out his instructions 
literally. On coming across a Tripoline squadron, he 
chased it into the port of Chios and fired upon it, causing, 
incidentally, some damage to the town. The feat was 
hailed by all the downtrodden European ambassadors 
at Constantinople as a timely lesson to the haughty 
Turk, from which they were all likely to profit. Even 
the English ambassador, despite the chronic rivalry 
between the two nations in the Levant, could not sup- 
press his joy at the news : " His Most Christian Majesty 
has put the greatest affront upon this Empire that it 
ever received since the taking of Constantinople," he 
wrote. " However things prove for the French and for 
the Porte, much of good must be derived from this 
rupture to the interest of all Christian princes that are 
under a present treaty with this Court." x 

The exultation did not last long. The Porte, which 
at first was thrown into a panic by this unparalleled 
demonstration of courage from a European State, pre- 
sently recovered its traditional tone. The Grand Vizier 
sent for the French ambassador and demanded a large 
indemnity for what he was pleased to regard as an act of 
wanton hostility, threatening to commit him to the 
Seven Towers, and to lay an embargo upon all French 
ships and goods in the Sultan's dominions. The ambassa- 
dor, relying on the support of his Government, and De 
Quesne's fleet of ten men-of-war, which was considered 

1 Sir John Finch to Secretary Jenkins, Sept. 22, 1681. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 



26 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

" more than doubly able to fight all the force the Ottoman 
Empire is able to make appear at sea," maintained a 
" Spanish flegm." So far from allowing himself to be 
brow-beaten, he seized the opportunity to vindicate his 
dignity, " not only refusing to sit below the sofa, but, 
being pressed to do it, kicked the stool down with his 
feet, and then " — made a spirited defence of De Quesne's 
action. To the Vizier's demand of reparation for the 
affront and damage done to the Grand Signor's pro- 
perty, he replied that the Tripoline vessels had captured 
two French ships in the port of Cyprus, that of his plaints 
no heed had been taken, that afterwards the same 
Tripolines had landed at Cyprus, taken the French 
consul out of his house, and after drubbing him made 
him pay 800 dollars for his ransom : it was as lawful 
for the King his master to set upon his enemies in the 
Grand Signor's ports as it was for them to attack the 
French. The plea did not convince the Vizier. All that 
M. de Guilleragues gained by his resolute bearing was 
that, instead of being thrown into prison, he was only 
taken into custody by the Chaoush-Bashi. After some 
days' detention, he promised to acquaint his King with 
the Grand Signor's desires, and was released. 1 

1 The Same to the Same, Oct. -1, 1681. Of the outrages to 

24 
which the French Ambassador alludes his English colleague had, 
at the time of their occurrence, sent home the following report : 
" The French Consul at Cyprus, commissioned immediately from 
the King, together with M. de St. Aman, a French merchant, were 
in the night taken out of their houses at Salines by the crew of 
three Tripoli men-of-war, who pretended to search for a French 
slave, and carried aboard and, being first drubbed, were after- 
wards forced to pay 700 dollars for their ransom, besides the loss 
of a ring of 300 dollars taken from the Consul's finger. The French 
Ambassador has of this case without example made lament to 
the Vizier, but as yet has had no answer. The same Tripolines 
have taken Captain Bon, a Frenchman, from Smyrna, worth 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 27 

After hovering about the Turkish coasts for nine 
months, De Quesne departed without success, and the 
French Ambassador, left in the lurch, would fain make 
his peace with the Porte by paying for the Chios exploit 
a present which the French valued at thirty and the 
Turks at twenty purses. In his anxiety to save his 
master's face, M. de Guilleragues pretended that this 
was a gift from his own pocket. The Turks, however, 
laughed at the pretence, and " used a filthy proverb 
for it." 1 

This inglorious episode was but one link in a long 
chain of quarrels, out of which the French ambassadors 
invariably came second best. At the beginning of the 
seventeenth century the Sieur Sensi, accused of having 
contrived the escape of a Polish prisoner of war, was 
committed to the Seven Towers, whence, after four 
months' confinement, he was delivered by the mediation 
of his master's money. 2 His successors (Counts de Cesy 
and de Marcheville) boasted that the Sultan honoured 
them at their audiences by allowing them to kiss, not 
indeed his hand, but a long sleeve fastened to his cloak 
for the purpose. 3 The accuracy of the statement may 
be doubted. But, in any case, it is certain that the 
imperial favour was short-lived. Cesy was the hero of the 
Jesuit drama, during which he cut anything but a respect- 
inspiring figure in the eyes of the Turks. But that was 

100,000 dollars, in which were Mr. Clutterbuck and Mr. Turner ; 
and they have taken the Jerusalem, a man-of-war from Leghorn, of 
40 guns and 270 men." Sir John Finch to the Earl of Sunderland, 

Nov. —, 1680. Ibid. 
16 

1 Lord Chandos to Jenkins, April -J-, 1682. Ibid. 

2 Ricaut, 161. 8 Tournefort, ii. 262. 



28 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

not all. A spendthrift and a libertine of a most colossal 
type, he had managed, before he had been three years in 
Constantinople, to contract debts amounting to nearly 
200,000 dollars. As time went on, he sank deeper and 
deeper into financial difficulties, with the result that he 
became an object of contempt to the Turks and of hate 
to the numerous and importunate money-lenders who had 
been rash enough to take a venture in his leaky barque. 
In 1 631 the King of France, thinking it dishonourable 
to be represented at the Porte by a bankrupt, recalled 
him, and Marcheville was sent to take his place. But 
the Turkish Government, at the instance of his creditors, 
refused to let Cesy go, declaring that the law, however 
indulgent it might be to the persons of ambassadors, did 
not acquit them from payment of their debts, or privilege 
them to rob the Grand Signor's subjects. So M. de Cesy 
had to remain at Constantinople, a sort of prisoner at 
large, exposed to daily affronts. 1 

Meanwhile, M. de Marcheville took over the embassy 
and proved even more unfortunate. On his voyage to 
Constantinople he had met off Chios the Capitan Pasha, 
who asked him to strike his flag, and to make ready the 
presents which were due to the Grand Signor's Lord High 
Admiral from a new ambassador. Marcheville tried to 
compromise by firing a salute of five guns. But the 
Capitan Pasha was not satisfied until he made him 
come on board his flagship to explain. Failing to obtain 
from the Porte any reparation for this insult, Marcheville 
vented his spleen by systematically disparaging the 
admiral's actions and character through his dragoman. 
The Pasha watched for an opportunity of punishing him, 

1 Sir Thomas Roe to Secretary Calvert, Dec. ii, 1622. Negotia- 
nt 
tions, 113 ; Ricaut, 161. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 29 

and he found one in 1632, when a Turkish woman, a 
slave, was discovered on a French ship ready to sail from 
Constantinople with the Ambassador's son in it. The 
Turks, drawing, rightly or wrongly, the obvious inference, 
imprisoned the son, and would have confiscated both the 
vessel and the cargo but for the united solicitations of 
the English and Venetian representatives. Thereupon 
the Capitan Pasha informed the Grand Signor that the 
Anglo- Venetian intervention had been brought about 
through the instrumentality of the French Ambassador's 
Armenian dragoman. The Sultan, infuriated by the 
thought that one of his own slaves should presume to 
meddle in a dispute with himself, had the wretched 
Armenian impaled out of hand. 

The Capitan Pasha presently went off on an expedition 
in the Black Sea. In his absence M. de Marcheville 
continued the campaign through another dragoman. 
On his return the admiral heard all this, and finding 
himself in high favour with the Sultan, thanks to some 
success he had had against the Cossacks, he obtained 
permission to punish the dragoman who had endeav- 
oured to blast his reputation. Under the pretence that 
he wished to make his peace with the Ambassador, he 
induced the latter to send his dragoman to him. The 
moment the interpreter arrived, he was seized and 
hanged. 

To his complaints M. de Marcheville could receive 
no other answer than that the Grand Signor had a 
right to execute justice on his subjects without asking 
leave from the King of France. Not satisfied, he con- 
tinued his attacks on the Capitan Pasha, until the Turk, 
provoked beyond endurance by the giaour's obstinacy, 
procured from the Sultan authority to get rid of him. 
Summoning the ambassador to his presence, he told 



30 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

him that it was the Grand Signor's pleasure that he 
should depart that instant. Marcheville remonstrated. 
But the Pasha, without even allowing him to pack, 
hustled him aboard a French ship then in port, forced 
it to sail at once and, as the wind was contrary, caused 
it to be towed out into the open sea by two gal- 
leys. 

Thus after three years' most ignominious career M. de 
Marcheville left Turkey, and M. de Cesy once more took 
up his diplomatic functions, to perform which he had 
first of all to apply to the Capitan Pasha's temper the 
traditional emollient. 1 

But it was the next French ambassador, Jean de la 
Haye, who tasted the full rigour of Ottoman amiability. 
A letter in cipher addressed by him to the Venetians, 
with whom the Grand Signor at the time was trying to 
conclude peace, was intercepted and forwarded to 
Adrianople, where His Majesty resided at the moment. 
The Ambassador was peremptorily summoned to give 
an account of himself. Unable to undertake the journey 
through old age, gout, and fear, he sent instead his son 
Denis with the commercial secretary of the Embassy ; 
for the other secretary, who was responsible for the 
cipher, dreading the anger of the Grand Vizier (the 
terrible old Mohammed Kuprili), had sought safety in 
flight. 

Denis de la Haye, on reaching Adrianople, was imme- 
diately called up before the Divan, and subjected to a 
cross-examination. The insolent tone in which the 
questions were put provoked the young man to a defiant 
retort. The Turks, as incapable of receiving high words 
as they were ready to give them, were greatly incensed 
at his daring. Kuprili, choleric by nature and par- 

1 Ricaut's History of the Turkish Empire (1680), i. 36-37, 50-51. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 31 

ticularly ill-disposed towards the French, ordered the 
Chaoush-Bashi to strike De la Haye on the mouth, which 
the officer did with such vigour that he struck out two 
of the young man's teeth, and then dragged him down- 
stairs by the hair of his head to a dungeon so foul and 
damp that the noxious vapours often extinguished 
the candle. 

Thereupon the aged father was also brought to Adrian- 
ople and put under arrest. Both were kept in durance 
till the anger of the Turks was exorcised with the f amiliar 
rite. But their trials were not yet over. Scarcely 
had they returned to Constantinople, when news came 
that a French vessel loaded with Turkish goods had 
run away. The wretched Ambassador was again locked 
up — this time in the Seven Towers, where he remained 
for two months. At last, by the solicitations of his 
friends at the Porte and by presents, he was released, 
but deposed from his office, and the Embassy was put 
in charge of four French merchants. Yet he would 
not depart. He stayed on, praying for the speedy 
demise of the fierce and infirm Grand Vizier, and hoping 
that, when that happy event took place, he might 
recover his post and bequeath it to his son. But 
Kuprili, in spite of the Frenchman's prayers and his 
own ill-health, persisted in living. De la Haye had to 
go, and the Vizier vowed that, as long as he was above 
ground, no French ambassador should set foot in Con- 
stantinople. 

However, all things come to an end. Mohammed 
Kuprili's life came to its own soon afterwards, and the 
King of France wrote to his son and successor Ahmed, 
desiring that the former good relations should be resumed 
and the ex-ambassador's son admitted to the place of 
his father. With this request the new Vizier graciously 



32 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

complied, declaring that the Grand Signer's arms were 
open to all who came with submission and respect. 

Louis anticipated that the Porte would make amends 
for its past misconduct by receiving with extraordinary 
marks of distinction the diplomatist upon whom they 
had once heaped such extraordinary indignities. This 
anticipation was founded on a singularly erroneous 
estimate of Turkish nature. The Grand Vizier abso- 
lutely declined to grant the exceptional honours which 
Denis de la Haye demanded, and the ambassador, refusing 
the usual cortege of ten chaoushes, walked from the 
landing-place up to the Embassy attended only by his 
own retinue (Dec. 7, 1665). 

Incredible though it may sound in the representative 
of a nation which prides itself on psychological insight, 
and in a man, too, who had had such rich personal 
experience of Ottoman psychology generally and of 
the Kuprili psychology more particularly, De la Haye 
still hoped that the Porte, awed by his master's great- 
ness, would honour him with concessions. Inspired 
by this hope he proceeded to demand the revocation of 
a commercial treaty which the Sultan had just con- 
cluded with the Genoese Republic, as prejudicial to his 
country's trade, more than hinting that the Turks by 
cultivating the friendship of Genoa ran the risk of earning 
the enmity of France. Ahmed calmly replied that the 
Grand Signor was master in his own house and free to 
choose his friends without consulting the King of France : 
such as were envious or discontented were at liberty 
to depart. 1 

After these preliminary shots at long range came a 

1 Winchilsea to Nicholas, March 4, 166- ; May 14, 1661 ; 

May 20, 1662 ; Ricaut, 162-164 ; Ricaut's Memoirs (1679), 
106-110, 191-194. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 33 

face-to-face encounter. The Vizier received the Am- 
bassador with more than the customary superciliousness. 
De la Haye withdrew at once, and sent word that if 
the Vizier did not rise on his entrance he would restore 
the Capitulations and go home. A second interview 
followed. The Vizier again refused to stir. Whereupon 
De la Haye dashed the Capitulations at his feet, and 
the Vizier called him a Jew. From words the disputants 
proceeded to deeds. The Chaoush-Bashi pushed De la 
Haye off the stool and struck him with it. De la Haye 
attempted to draw his sword, but was knocked down 
and locked up in the Grand Vizier's house. Three 
days later, Ahmed, after consulting with the Mufti 
and the Capitan Pasha, decided to grant the Ambassador 
another audience and make believe that it was the first. 
He received him with a sardonic smile : " What has 
passed, has passed," he said. " Let us be good friends 
in future." x 

De la Haye, however, was determined to secure less 
dishonourable terms of intercourse for his King's repre- 
sentatives. On seeing the futility of his mission, he 
asked to be allowed to depart, and told the Porte that 
France would send no more ambassadors, but that he 
had power to appoint a Resident like those of Holland 
and Genoa. The Porte replied that, as his King had 
not written to the Grand Signor, they could not be sure 
that his request was by His Majesty's orders. They 
would, therefore, send a messenger of their own to Paris 
to find out the King's wishes. A few days later they 
commissioned a person of the lowest rank and abilities — 
" the buffoon of the camp " — to act as the bearer of a 
letter in which it was stated that, as the king had recalled 
his Ambassador without sending another, according 
1 Hammer, xi. 45, 229. 



34 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

to custom, the Sultan sent his slave to know whether 
this proceeded from any displeasure with the Ambassador 
or with the Porte. The messenger being miserably 
poor, De la Haye had to provide him with three fur 
coats, worth three hundred dollars each, and one thousand 
dollars ready money. In spite of this aid, the envoy 
could not start until he had procured something more 
towards his expenses. To end a long tale, it was believed 
at the time that the affair cost De la Haye, as it was 
intended to do, more than twenty thousand dollars 
before he managed to get away. 1 

The French Court did its best to surround his departure, 
as well as the arrival of his successor, M. de Nointel, with 
circumstances nicely calculated to refurbish the tarnished 
name of France in the East. Its new representative 
entered the Golden Horn, in the winter of 1670, escorted 
by a squadron of four men-of-war, and the splendour 
of his entry was such as to excite the envy of his English 
colleague, who contrasted it ruefully with his own advent 
" on a pitiful merchant ship." These men-of-war 
haughtily refused to salute the Seraglio — a thing never 
known before — while they shot more than forty guns 
in the night when they received De la Haye on board : 
a thing as unusual as the other, which filled the whole 
of sleeping Stambul with alarm. But the French, 
always apt to overdo things, carried their defiance too 
far. One of their men-of-war anchored near the Seven 
Towers and assisted a very important prisoner — a French 
knight of Malta whom the Grand Vizier valued so highly 
that he had declined the large sums of money offered 

1 Lord Winchilsea to Lord Arlington ° v " 22 , 1668 ; Sir 

Dec. 2 

Daniel Harvey to the Same, no date, but apparently written in 

1669, S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. Cp. Ricaut's Memoirs, 

256- 2 57- 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 35 

for his release— to escape. Small wonder that M. de 
Nointel fared no better than his predecessor— that he 
was pushed out of the Grand Vizier's room by the shoul- 
ders ; the officer who performed this ceremony shouting 
at him, " Off you go, Giaour ! " * 

The virulence of the Turks against the French at 
this period was mainly due to their proselytizing and 
piratical activities, and also to the help they were afford- 
ing the Venetians in Crete during their protracted defence 
of the island against the Grand Signor's armies. But 
it was aggravated by the insistence of the French repre- 
sentatives on more dignified treatment. M. de Nointel, 
like his predecessors, never wearied of demanding, and 
the Grand Vizier of denying, the privilege of sitting 
on the sofa. And it was only after repeated scenes 2 
that he yielded the point. His Court, however, was not 
inclined to yield. His successor M. de Guilleragues 
stubbornly refused audience unless he had it on the 
sofa, and after eighteen months received letters from 
the King to the Sultan and to the Vizier, in which Louis 
disavowed Nointel's surrender, and declared that he 
would on no account acquiesce in the stool. Thereupon 
ensued a pretty situation. The ambassador would not 
go to the Grand Vizier unless he was received on the 
sofa. The Grand Vizier would not receive him except 
on the stool, and neither would he receive the King's 
letters from any other hand than the ambassador's. 3 

1 Sir Daniel Harvey to Joseph Williamson, Nov. . 1670 ■ 

Jo G T !n? e w L ° rd Axlia ^ n > Dec - 4, 1670 ; Ricaut's Memoirs', 
291-293 ; Hammer, xn. 8. 

2 For a typical example see Ricaut's Memoirs, 335. 

8 Sir John Finch to the Earl of Sunderland, Oct JL Nov A 

18' " 16' 
1680 ; April H, 1681 ; the Same to Jenkins, May ™, 1681. 



36 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

For more than twenty-one months had this deadlock 
lasted, and the royal letters were still undelivered, when 
there came the Chios affair to cut the knot, as we have 
seen. At the time it was thought that De Quesne 
would sail through the Dardanelles to give cogency to 
Guilleragues's eloquence ; x but the expectation was 
not fulfilled. It would seem that the monarch who 
domineered in so arrogant a manner over the West had 
lost all concern for his honour in the East ; and the 
ambassador who had borne the brunt of that miserable 
business died at his post three years afterwards — from 
natural causes. 

There ensued a lull. The Grand Vizier Kara-Mustafa 
was too much taken up with his glorious dreams of con- 
quest abroad to pursue paltry quarrels at home. While 
he prepared a huge army for a march on Vienna, French 
corsairs, thinly disguised under the Portuguese flag, 
appeared in the Archipelago and inflicted considerable 
damage and disgrace upon the Ottoman flag ; " but 
the proud Vizier, having his hands full another way, 
takes no manner of notice to the French Ambassador 
of any such matter ; nay, when a command came to 
employ Frank ships for to transport soldiers from Alexan- 
dria to Salonica, the French only were spared in that 
command, leaving it doubtful to many whether out of 
friendship or fear ; but there is no doubt that the Vizier 
heartily desires the French may attempt the Germans 
on one side while he devours them on the other, and I 
have reason to believe would pay roundly for such a 
convenience. But God forbid the French should ever, 

1 The Same to the Same, July 25, 1681 ; Sir Clement Harby to 
the Same, Zante, Feb. 20, 168-. 5. P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 37 

for their private ends, give so fatal a blow to Christen- 
dom " 1 

The French did nothing of the sort. Nevertheless 
they played their cards so unscrupulously during that 
eventful decade and turned Turkey's hostilities with 
other Christians so skilfully to their own profit 
that in 1694 their representative, M. de Chateauneuf, 
obtained a firman to drive all the Venetians out of the 
Ottoman Empire — an unprecedented piece of severity : 
the Turks, while maltreating the ambassadors of the 
Powers with which they were at war, never molested 
the merchants, as Christian States did and still do ; 
but even while hostilities were still in progress connived 
at commerce with the hostile country for the sake of 
revenue. He also procured a command to put the 
Syrian Patriarch into the galleys, ostensibly for speaking 
ill of the King of France, but really for opposing the 
endeavours of the Latin fathers to bring over the Orthodox 
Syrians to their Church. By way of a return for these 
favours, two members of the French Embassy, with two 
hundred officers and engineers, accompanied, in 1697, 
the Grand Vizier on his campaign against the Emperor. 2 

About the same time we hear that Turks of quality, 
instead of avoiding, patronized French ships in their 
voyages in the Mediterranean, and travelled with pass- 
ports from the French Ambassador. A remarkable 
instance of this cordiality is furnished by a contemporary, 
though naturally biassed, witness. He relates that he 
made in Constantinople the acquaintance of a Turkish 

1 Lord Chandos to Secretary Jenkins, January -^-, 168-. S.P. 

Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 

2 Nathaniel Harley to Sir Edward Harley, Aleppo, July 20, 
1694 '> tne Same to his brother, July 26, 1697. Hist. MSS. 
Com. Rep. XIII. Pt. ii. 245, 247. 



38 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Bey who spoke highly of the French benefits to his 
country. This gentleman had been sent to Algiers by 
the Grand Signor in a French vessel bound for Tripoli. 
There he transhipped into a Turkish vessel; but this 
ship was wrecked on the coast of Sicily, and all the sur- 
vivors were enslaved by the Sicilians. Fortunately the 
Bey had saved his French passport and, as soon as he 
showed it, his fate underwent a complete change : he 
and all his attendants were presented with new clothes, 
supplied with everything they needed, and given a ship 
which took them to Algiers. On his return journey 
the Bey embarked again in a French vessel which touched 
at Marseilles. He was treated with the greatest honour 
both on board the ship and ashore, the town of Mar- 
seilles welcoming and speeding him in a manner that 
raised his good opinion of the French nation to the 
highest possible pitch. 1 

But with Chateauneuf's departure from Constantinople 
the ill-humour on both sides broke violently forth again. 
The struggle for the sofa having ended in a triumph for 
the Porte, a new struggle on another point of etiquette 
arose, when M. de Ferriol, on his first audience of the 
Sultan (January 5, 1700), attempted to assert the majesty 
of France by appearing with his sword by his side, and 
was, in consequence, thrust out of doors. Unabashed, 
he had recourse to various other expedients, more or less 
sensational, for proving that " Le roi Soleil " was as 
good as the " Brother of the Sun." The curious in 
such matters will find ample food for amusement in the 
pages of the Moldavian Prince Demetrius Cantemir, 
who narrates the Baron's pranks with the meticulous 
malice of an Oriental sycophant, too well accustomed 

1 Paul Lucas, Second Voyage au Levant, 43. Cp. Troisidme 
Voyage, i. 43 foil. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 39 

to the servilities of the Seraglio to be able to understand 
the Frank's persistent irreverence, save on the hypo- 
thesis of madness. 1 And, in truth, it appears that the 
French Court, finding no other way out of an impossible 
position, ended by ordering its representative to feign 
insanity, and Ferriol was finally sent home chained, 
leaving the Grand Signor and his minions henceforth 
in the undisturbed enjoyment of their insolence. 

4C " 5(J if- Sp 3ft 

The tameness of the King of France in tolerating this 
treatment of his representatives at the Porte excited 
the wonder of all who knew how tender of his dignity 
he was, and how keenly he resented the least slight on 
his envoys at other courts. They recalled the sanguinary 
fight for precedence between his own and the Spanish 
ambassador in London, and were unable to understand 
how the same sovereign could be so aggressively touchy 
there and so thick-skinned here ; thus " making sport 
for the Turks and rendering all the other princes of 
Christendom the like subjects of their scorn." 2 Yet 
the explanation is simple enough : expediency. It 
would not have paid the great Louis to do in Constan- 
tinople what he did in London, for the Sultans, con- 
temptible as they already were, were not yet quite so 
contemptible as the Stuarts. 

On the other hand, some modern English writers, 

1 See his History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire 
(Eng. tr. 1756), 423-425. In the French version of the case 
(Tournefort, ii. 214-226), the man whom Cantemir represents as 
an irresponsible lunatic is emphatically praised for " his presence 
of mind " and " firm resolution " : so much depends on the point 
of view. It may be added that Ferriol' s own diplomatic Corre- 
spondance (Antwerp, 1870) does not betray more than the normal 
amount of insanity. 

1 Lord Winchilsea to Nicholas, May 20, 1662. For the Franco- 
Spanish fray alluded to see Pepys's Diary, Sept. 30, 1661. 



40 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

like George Finlay, have animadverted in no mild terms 
on the " presumption and petulance " of the French 
ambassadors, describing their attempts to break through 
the humiliating Ottoman etiquette and the importance 
they attached to the question where and how they 
were to sit, as " a despicable exhibition of childish folly." 
The criticism is quite beside the mark. That there was 
a dose of vanity mixed with the self-assertion of those 
gentlemen cannot be denied ; but surely their main motive 
was a motive of principle the soundness of which a little 
knowledge of the world is enough to make plain to the 
least imaginative : how could a person sitting on a 
stool ever negotiate with a person lolling on a sofa on 
a footing of equality ? 1 All things considered, it is to the 
credit of the French that they alone among Western 
diplomatists had the spirit and the sense to resist what 
their colleagues only resented. By the same token, it 
reflects anything but credit on the courage or the intelli- 
gence of those who, instead of seconding the representa- 
tives of France in their struggle for decency and sharing 
in the fruits of the victory, endeavoured to make capital 
out of their discomfiture. It was this selfish and short- 
sighted pusillanimity that emboldened the Porte to 
go on treating the princes of Christendom as so many 
dogs. 

The French, left unsupported, gave up the struggle 
at length ; and the ambassadors of Louis XIV's suc- 

1 The English ambassadors were as conscious of the importance 
of the seat as their French colleagues, and not less covetous of the 

honour : only more cautious. Lord Chandos, on April -1, 1682, 

27 

wrote to Secretary Jenkins : " For the sofa there is very slender 

hopes for either English or French. I am persuaded we are in 

as fair a way for that feather as they are, though we talk less 

about it." S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 41 

cessors tried, like their colleagues, to do by bakshish 
what could not be done by bluster. They had their 
reward. In 171 9, Count Virmont obtained for the 
Catholics of Chios the restoration of the privileges which 
they had forfeited in 1695. Five years later Viscount 
d'Andrezel obtained permission to build a new chapel 
in the Consulate of the island. Fifteen years later still 
the Marquis de Villeneuve managed to insert in the 
French Capitulations a clause which authorized the 
Latins to take possession of several holy places. 1 Illusory 
as these concessions often proved (the Sultan was a 
past master in the art of taking back with one hand 
what he had just given with the other), they served the 
purpose of encouraging the Catholic missionaries in their 
work of proselytism and so, indirectly, of promoting the 
political influence of France over the Levant. 

More tangible were the commercial advantages which 
French diplomacy, by its " prudence," secured in the 
Grand Signor's dominions during the eighteenth century. 
The English Levant Company vainly strove to hold its 
own against the French competitor, and the latter flour- 
ished in proportion as the former languished. English 
conservatism, lack of organization, and general slack- 
ness, as contrasted with the opposite qualities in their 
rivals, contributed very largely to this result ; 2 but it 
cannot be doubted that French mercantile enterprise 
was powerfully assisted by the predominance of French 

1 Hammer, xiv ; Une ambassade francaise en Orient sous 
Louis XV ; Mission du marquis de Villeneuve, 1728-41. By 
A. Vandal (1887). 

2 All that has been said of late years concerning the causes 
of the development of German at the expense of English trade in 
the Near East was said in the eighteenth century. By reading 
" German " for " French " you get a wonderful anticipation of 
modern history in Sir James Porter's able work on The State of 
the Turkey Commerce (1771). 



42 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

diplomacy on the Bosphorus. In Syria alone French 
imports — cloths of Languedoc, Lyons laces, soap, hard- 
ware, indigo, sugar, West Indies coffee, etc. — attained 
the sum, enormous in those days, of six million livres 
(£250,000) a year ; and French travellers, with a pride 
as pardonable as it was natural, wrote : " France has the 
greatest trade to Syria of any European nation." x 

The policy of which these were the fruits may be 
described briefly as a vigorous and consistent support 
of Turkey against all her enemies. A most valuable 
commerce, amounting nearly to a monopoly, and ulterior 
ambitions of territorial aggrandizement in the Near East 
induced France to regard with a jealous eye any aug- 
mentation of Austria or Russia at the Sultan's expense. 
Accordingly, in 1739, France thought to do a stroke of 
business which would enhance her own influence in 
Europe, lay the Sultan under an obligation, earn her 
the gratitude of Austria, and preserve the balance of 
power, by offering to the Austro-Russo-Turkish belli- 
gerents her services as peacemaker. The Emperor 
snatched at the offer with the eagerness of despair. 
The Empress and the Sultan were both persuaded to 
rest satisfied with their laurels ; and there ensued the 
last advantageous treaty concluded by the Ottoman 
Empire through its own military victories and the diplo- 
matic dexterity of its Western ally. 2 

In the next great tempest the Porte went through 
(1 768-1 774) the intentions of France, at all events, 
were benevolent. The famous M. de Tott, a French 
ex-Consul at the Dardanelles versed in military engineer- 
ing, repaired the old and erected new fortifications 

1 See C. F. Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt, 1 783-1 785 
(Eng. tr. 1793), 142, 513-514. 

2 See Hammer and Vandal op. cit. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 43 

in the Straits, to the great satisfaction of the 
Porte. Then, as if to put his loyalty beyond the shadow 
of a doubt, he embraced Islam, entered the Ottoman 
service, and founded a school of military engineeers 
under the immediate patronage of the Grand Signor. 
He worked with so much devotion at his new calling 
that in a few years he was believed to have accomplished 
a marvellous improvement in the management of the 
Turkish artillery and in the frontier defences of the 
Empire. 1 The confidence with which this talented 
renegade inspired the Turks, reinforced by the French 
ambassador's instigations, drove them to their disastrous 
conflict with Russia (1 768-1 774). " I myself have kindled 
this war ! " bragged M. de Vergennes, Louis XV's repre- 
sentative on the Bosphorus. History does not record 
what he said when all the efforts of his master to save 
the Sultan's furniture from the conflagration failed. 

The lesson was not lost on France, and when the next 
storm appeared on the northern horizon, she did all 
that was possible to ward it off. It was clear by this 
time that Turkey could not defend herself against Russia ; 
and France, distracted by the rumblings which heralded 
the imminent upheaval of the Great Revolution, could 
not defend her. The French Government declared to 
the Porte that it was utterly impossible for it to interfere 
in any other manner than as a mediator. This declaration 
was far from satisfactory to the Turkish people, who, 
considering France as a sure ally, built much upon her 
naval assistance in keeping the Russians out of the 
Mediterranean. They resented their disappointment so 
much that only the Sultan's firmness and vigilance 

1 The Annual Register, 1773, 24-25. Cp. John Murray to the 
Earl of Shelburne, Constantinople, Aug. 17, 1768. S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No, 44. 



44 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

saved the French ambassador — the learned scholar 
and archaeologist Count de Choiseul Gouffier — from 
outrage at the hands of the mob. 1 But the Porte under- 
stood perfectly well that only the deranged state of his 
own affairs could compel the French monarch to remain 
a quiescent spectator of the ruin of his profitable ally. 
His representative had been indefatigable in his endeav- 
ours to prevent the war, and no less zealous since in 
his exertions to stop it. The Franco-Turkish alliance 
which had already lasted unbroken more than two cen- 
turies — a period scarcely paralleled in the chronicles of 
international friendships — still held. 

The first breach was created by Bonaparte's invasion 
of Egypt in 1798. That act induced the Sultan to join 
the second coalition against France, and roused his 
Moslem subjects to great fury against their former allies. 
This revulsion of feeling spread as far as the limits of 
the Ottoman Empire, and the rivals of France in Asia, 
as in Europe, hastened to turn it to their own account. 
" The inhabitants of this part of the Turkish territory," 
writes the East India Company's Agent at Bussora to 
his colleague at Aleppo, " abominate them, and the 
Bacha of Bagdat has most cordially co-operated 
with me in counteracting French intrigues there." 2 

The breach was repaired after Bonaparte's expulsion 
from the East, and on the conclusion of the Peace of 
Amiens (1802) the French resumed their old role of 
the Sultan's friends and allies, almost as if nothing had 
happened. Their influence at the Porte kept pace with 
the progress of their power on the Continent, and reached 
its zenith in 1805, when Turkey was incited to take the 

1 The Annual Register, 1788, 23. 

2 Samuel Manesty to Robert Abbott, Oct. 3, 1798. S.P. 
Foreign, Supplementary, No. 67, 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 45 

side of Napoleon in his war with the third coalition. 
The French could not prevent the Russian armies from 
marching into the Danubian dependencies of the Otto- 
man Empire, but they did save its capital from the ships 
of Russia's English ally. It was Napoleon's ambassador, 
General Sebastiani, who, with many French officers and 
gunners under his command, organized the defence of 
Constantinople, and who directed the diplomatic negotia- 
tions which gave the Porte time to complete its prepara- 
tions. As a result of Sebastiani's skill, the English 
admiral Duckworth reached his destination too late, 
and was glad enough to get the major part of his fleet 
safely out of the Dardanelles again. 

But Turkey was a mere pawn in Napoleon's gigantic 
game. He was far too shrewd an observer to over- 
estimate the value of an ally who had been moribund 
for ages and kept alive only by the inability of the 
various claimants to his inheritance to reconcile their 
clashing claims. Accordingly, he did not hesitate in 
the Peace of Tilsit (1807) to abandon the Sultan to the 
Tsar's tender mercies. The two Emperors agreed then 
that, if the Porte disobeyed, they would join forces to 
liberate the European provinces from its effete and 
oppressive rule — such, at all events, was the euphemistic 
way in which the French Press put it. We even have it 
on the authority of the Tsar that Napoleon said to him : 
"It is impossible any longer to endure the presence of 
the Turks in Europe ; you are at liberty to chase them 
into Asia ; but observe only, I rely upon it that Con- 
stantinople is not to fall into the hands of any European 
Power." * 

1 Prince Hardenberg's Memoirs, ix. 432. Years afterwards 
Napoleon at St. Helena explained that he " thought it would 
benefit the world to drive those brutes the Turks out of Europe." 
O'Meara, i. 382. 



46 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Turks who had so lately intoned hymns of praise 
to the French saviour of their country, now raged at 
his treachery. But what could they do ? Times had 
changed since the golden age when they were allowed 
to treat the Great Powers of Europe as " little dogs." 
They had realized at last that they possessed nothing 
of the lion, except his roar. The Ottoman Empire was 
at that moment menaced with destruction from without 
and disruption from within. One Grand Signor had 
just been deposed by the turbulent Janissaries and 
another put in his place, only to be replaced by a third 
in a few months. Amidst this turmoil arrived the French 
mandate : make peace with the Tsar at once, and on the 
Tsar's terms, lest worse things befall ! 

This was the end of the ancient alliance between 

Turkey and France. Napoleon in 1807 uprooted the 

friendship which Francis had planted in 1536. The 

part which France played in the emancipation of Greece 

(182 7-1 830) completed the estrangement. 

***** 

Thenceforward France became in Turkish eyes one 
of the several vultures which hovered over their 
dying Empire, greedily watching for its final gasp. 

The portions of the carcass chiefly coveted by France 
were Egypt and Syria. This was the real motive of the 
French Government's lively interest in the Latin monks 
and their machinations at Jerusalem. So far back as 
1687 it was believed that the French ambassador had 
demanded from the Porte the cession of the Holy Land, 
promising that his master would, in return, make war 
on the Emperor. 1 Some eighty years later the project 
of seizing and colonizing Egypt was suggested by M. 

1 Nathaniel Harley to Sir Edward Harley, Aleppo, Oct. 29, 
1687. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. XIII, Pt. ii. 242. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 47 

de Vergennes to his Government, and, at one time, 
was very seriously thought of. This ancient dream 
had been revived and re-invigorated by Napoleon. 
He passed away, but not the memory of his romantic 
expedition. Napoleon had shown to the people of 
France the way to the East for which their ancestors 
under the monarchy had schemed in vain : he had laid 
open before them the dazzling prospect of an Asiatic 
colonial empire destined to rival and, perhaps, to replace 
the Oriental empire of the English. It was a fascinating 
vision ; but the Turks did not like it. 

The suspicions of the Porte were strengthened by the 
extraordinary sympathy manifested in France for its 
rebel subject, the Pasha of Egypt (1832-1840)— a sym- 
pathy which synchronized ominously with the French 
occupation of Algeria. The French affected to see in 
Mohammed Ali a regenerator of the East, and they pre- 
tended that the more they assisted him, the stronger 
would the Sultan's position be. The Sultan was unable 
to share this view, but put quite a different interpretation 
on the attitude of France. Other things deepened the 
Sultan's distrust. France, in spite of the Revolution 
and her virtual abdication of her role as the eldest daugh- 
ter of the Church, continued to pose as the champion of 
Romanism abroad, claiming, by virtue of ancient tradi- 
tions and Capitulations, the right to protect all Catholics 
in the Ottoman Empire, without any invidious distinc- 
tions as to nationality; and the perpetual squabbles 
between Eastern and Western monks over the Holy 
Sepulchre afforded her frequent opportunities for asserting 
her claim. 

It was one of these squabbles that, as the irony of 
things would have it, impelled France, in 1854, to defend 
by force of arms the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. 



48 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Her championship of Western Christians collided with 
Russia's solicitude for Eastern Christians. A petty row 
between two sets of cassocked fanatics in Palestine 
developed rapidly, under the fostering care of a wise 
diplomacy, into an international dispute, which presently, 
with England'>s help, culminated in the Crimean War. 1 
For an instant, Turks and Frenchmen found themselves 
again brothers-in-arms, as in the good old days, and 
Paris had the honour of witnessing the conclusion of the 
Treaty which was to give the Sick Man another chance of 
recovery. 

Whatever gratitude the Turks may have conceived 
towards France for her Crimean adventure was soon 
obliterated by her interference in the Lebanon. And 
there again the excuse was the protection of Catholicism. — 
only not against Russian schismatics this time. The 
inhabitants of that mountain district of Syria are divided 
mainly into Moslem Druses and Catholic Maronites, 
two sects whose reciprocal detestation led in i860, as it 
had once before, to a savage warfare, ending in a whole- 
sale massacre. The Porte, as usual, proved unable to 
cope with the crisis, and France hastened to propose to 
the other Powers intervention. The Powers agreed, 
and let France send an army corps to restore order. 
The French Government did not expect to be allowed 
to establish a permanent occupation of Syria, but it 
calculated that the sight of the French guns in the East 
would serve as an advertisement especially effective 
at a time when French capital and engineering skill were 
displaying themselves on the Isthmus of Suez. This 

1 The comical incidents which led up to that tragedy will be 
found set forth, with all undue solemnity, in the Blue Book, 
Correspondence respecting the Rights and Privileges of the Latin 
and Greek Churches in Turkey, presented to both Houses of Parlia- 
ment by command of Her Majesty in 1854. 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 49 

was the gain, so far as France was concerned. So far as 
Turkey was concerned, the upshot of these politico- 
military proceedings was a modification of the adminis- 
trative status of the Lebanon in a sense which weakened 
very considerably the Sultan's grasp upon it. 

Six years later, when troubles in the Danubian Princi- 
palities threatened Turkey with further disintegration, 
the hostility of the French Government, and even more 
that of its agents at Constantinople, filled the Turks 
with inexpressible terror, 1 which is not surprising. 

After her disastrous war with Germany (1870) France, 
by drawing near to Russia, became doubly hostile 
to Turkey : hostile on her own account, and also on 
account of the Power which in time was to be acclaimed 
by the Paris newspapers as the nation amie et alliee. 
Through the troublous period that immediately preceded 
the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 the Tsar's representative 
at the Porte found in his French colleague a faithful 
second, and in the French military agent an unpaid spy. 2 
The Turks expressed their resentment by murdering the 
French Consul at Salonica, M. Moulin (1876). 

In the Congress of Berlin (1878) France maintained 
that attitude of reserve which the sense of her weakness 
imposed. Her delegate, M. Waddington, wished to 
regain for his country in the counsels of Europe the 
diplomatic influence which she had lost through her 

1 See Lord Lyons to the Earl of Clarendon, March 14, 1866 ; 
the Same to Earl Cowley, April 18, 1866, in Lord Newton's life 
of Lord Lyons, i. 153, 154. 

2 See Nelidow's " Souvenirs," in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
May 15, July 15, 1915. It is interesting for the political psycho- 
logist to contrast this with the French attitude before the humilia- 
tion of 1870. In the 'sixties on nearly every matter the two 
Embassies were in opposition to each other. So much so that 
the Russian ambassador used to declare that his French colleague's 
insupportable arrogance made business with him impossible. 
See Lord Newton's life of Lord Lyons, i. 148. 



50 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

military defeat ; but circumstances being stronger 
than wishes he had to content himself with a platonic 
reaffirmation of French interests in Egypt and Syria. 
Three years later, however, the designs of the Republic 
against the Ottoman Empire began to materialize. 
In 1881, under some more or less fictitious pretexts, 
French troops invaded Tunisia, and, without reducing 
the principality formally to the position of Algeria, 
they established over it an indirect control more effective 
than any formal annexation could be. Thus France 
violated the very integrity of the Sultan's dominions 
which she had guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris. The 
Sultan contemplated this revolution of the political 
wheel with fatalistic resignation. Diplomacy takes no 
account of treaty-rights that are not backed by force. 
Next year France had another opportunity for aggran- 
dizement at Turkey's expense' — for realizing, partially 
at all events, her dream of conquest in the Eastern 
Mediterranean. But she missed it by one of those blun- 
ders which occur now and then to mystify the unofficial 
student of history. That year the question of Egypt 
was opened. The profligacy of Mohammed Ali's suc- 
cessors had delivered the country up to the tender mercies 
of the money-lenders and of the Governments that stood 
behind them. The bulk of the Egyptian debt was in 
the hands of French and English bondholders. It was 
clearly to the interest of France and England to co- 
operate ; and they did co-operate up to a certain point. 
But when the moment came for action, French policy 
had a most mysterious attack of paralysis. Should 
the Republic intervene to put down Arabi's revolt against 
the Khedive's incompetent rule, or should it leave Eng- 
land to intervene alone ? French opinion was divided 
on the question — that other question, whether it would 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 51 

not be better to support Arabi's movement and assist 
the national regeneration of Egypt, did not, of course, 
trouble politicians on either side of the Channel. One 
party advocated joint action with England and a division 
of the spoils of the Egyptians. The other party dwelt 
on the dangers to which an expedition in the East might 
lay open the Republic in the West. France, they argued, 
should not divert her attention from the Rhine to the 
Nile : what would the spoils of the Egyptians avail her, 
if thereby she ran the risk of being herself once more 
spoiled by the Prussians ? The Premier, M. de Freycinet, 
as undecided as the public, attempted to satisfy both 
parties and ended by earning the execrations of both. 
He wished to intervene on the Isthmus of Suez, but not 
in the valley of the Nile, and asked from the Chamber 
funds for the military occupation of the Canal. The 
advocates of intervention found the proposal too timid, 
its adversaries too bold; and both sides concurred in 
refusing to supply funds. Not the least remarkable 
feature of this very remarkable exhibition of political 
fatuity was this— France dreaded a Turkish participation 
in a joint intervention, even if it were only moral, far 
more than the exclusive landing of English troops ! 1 

France tried to console herself for the loss of Egypt 
by pushing on her propaganda in Syria and other parts 
of the Ottoman Empire, and extending her moral, com- 
mercial, and political influence in the Eastern Mediter- 
ranean. These activities brought her into constant 

1 M. de Freycinet was afterwards accused of having sold his 
country to the per fide Albion. But that native blindness to 
realities, not foreign gold, was responsible for the Republic's 
suicidal pusillanimity is made abundantly clear by the dispatches 
exchanged between the English Ambassador Lord Lyons and the 
Foreign Secretary Lord Granville. See Lord Newton's life of the 
former, ii. 258-304. 



52 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

friction with the Porte ; and during the Armenian 
troubles of 1894-1896 more than five hundred scholastic, 
religious, and charitable establishments, French or 
under French protection, were destroyed or damaged 
by the Turks. At that time the fear of a general European 
war, for which neither France nor her Russian ally was 
prepared, compelled France to remain quiescent. But 
a few years later (1901) she seized the pretext offered by 
a financial dispute between the Porte and two French 
money-lenders in the Levant to bully the Sultan into 
submission. Her ambassador, M. Constans, left Con- 
stantinople, and her fleet seized the Custom House of 
Mytilene. The Turks, finding assistance nowhere, were 
obliged to grant every one of the French claims. They 
not only paid the usurers' bill, but they consented to 
the rebuiliding or restoration of all the propagandist 
institutions, and, moreover, bound themselves to recog- 
nize the legal status of these establishments, and of any 
others that might be founded in the future. The French 
celebrated their triumph in a manner as offensive to 
Turkish feelings as the concessions they had wrung from 
the Sultan were detrimental to Turkish interests. A 
flamboyant thanksgiving service took place in the 
Romano-Chaldean church at Constantinople, while in 
Syria the various Catholic communities gave vent to 
their exultation not only in Te Deums, but also in grateful 
messages to the Government of the Republic through 
the French Consuls. Shortly afterwards, a grand fete 
was held at the Jesuits' College of Beyrout, and the 
French Charge d' Affaires invited the Porte to send 
delegates to assist at the examination of the students ! 
The efforts of French financiers to further their pacific 
penetration into the Ottoman Empire and the penury 
of the Ottoman Exchequer combined to create many 



FRANCE AND THE TURKS 53 

occasions for bad feeling between the two Governments. 
The Sultan was often obliged to have recourse to French 
capital for the construction of railways, the exploitation 
of coal mines, and other works of public utility. But 
he was seldom able to meet his obligations punctually. 
Hence frequent quarrels which did not lead to a rupture 
of diplomatic relations only because the French Govern- 
ment recognized that it would not be prudent to repeat 
the performance of 1901. In all these affairs, it is hardly 
necessary to state, France enjoyed the cordial aid of 
Russia, and in return gave Russia her own cordial aid 
both during the reign of Abdul Hamid and after his fall. 
The result was that the French Republic became identified, 
in the estimation of all Turks, Young and Old alike, with 
the Russian Empire, and shared, in a measure, the 
sentiments which they entertained towards that Power. 



Chapter III 

RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 

TDAKSHISH might conciliate the Turk's favour; 
*-^ but the only thing that ever commanded his re- 
spect was brute force. The Russians proved themselves 
worthy of respect at a very early date. In 1569 the 
troops of Ivan the Terrible met those of Sultan Selim II 
outside the town of Astrakhan and handled them in a 
manner which produced a lasting impression on the 
Turkish mind. And so it came about that, while the 
sovereigns of the West, through their unfortunate repre- 
sentatives, grovelled at the Grand Signor's feet, the ruler 
of Muscovy was able to treat with him on terms of abso- 
lute equality, and " filled his letters with high threats 
and hyperbolical expressions of his power and with as 
swelling titles as the Turk." x This equality was illus- 
trated not less vividly by other things than words. Thus, 
if in 1624 two Russian ambassadors were put to death 
by the Turks, in 1642 a Turkish ambassador was mur- 
dered by the Russians ; 2 and neither event diminished 
the esteem which the Sultan nourished for a nation 
credited with the ability to put one hundred and fifty 
thousand horse in the field. It is true that, until the 

1 Ricaut, 176. 

2 See the List of Embassies to the Porte in Hammer, xvii. 152. 
There mention is also made of two Russian ambassadors sent 
in 1529, who having " disappeared, " a third came to look for 
them. 

54 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 55 

Holy Alliance between Russia, Poland, Austria and 
Venice, which led to the Peace of Carlowitz (January 26, 
1699), Russia did not pose as a protagonist in the struggle 
of Christendom against Islam. As yet imperfectly con- 
scious of her own strength and of Turkey's weakness, 
Russia had been content to leave the principal role in 
that drama to Austria and Venice. But for all that, 
the Lion at Stambul felt towards his Muscovite neighbour 
as he felt towards no other Christian dog. 

By an odd whim of Fortune, Russian prestige in the 
East was temporarily lowered by the same monarch who 
raised it to such a height in the West. Peter the Great, 
elated by his victory over the brilliant soldier-king of 
Sweden, Charles XII, and his model infantry (1709), was 
reckless enough to despise the old-fashioned Janissaries. 
He paid for his rashness in 1711, when, attacked by 
superior Ottoman forces on the banks of the Pruth, he 
was compelled to surrender with the remnant of his 
army. He ransomed himself by signing a treaty as 
humiliating to Russia as it was advantageous to Turkey. 
No one was more surprised by the Turkish success than 
the Turks themselves. It was with the greatest reluct- 
ance and many forebodings of disaster that they had 
entered upon the war. A prophecy which was in every 
mouth at this time — that the Muscovites were fated to 
take Constantinople and overturn their Empire — struck 
a strange damp on their spirits. 1 The rebound was all 
the more violent. The awe which the Russians had 
formerly inspired gave place to a feeling of contempt : 
the Muscovites, after all, were no worthier of a True 
Believer's regard than any other species of Giaours. 

It was the wish to blot out the memory of that disgrace 

1 Nathaniel Harley to Auditor Harley, Aleppo, Dec. 29, 1710. 
Hist. MSS. Co mm. Rep. XIII, PL ii. 251. 



56 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and to re-establish her country's prestige, more than 
hunger for conquest, that prompted the Empress Anne 
to renew hostilities with Turkey in 1736. In this object 
she succeeded. Her gifted field-marshal Mimnich, in 
the first campaign, stormed the lines of Perekop across 
the narrow neck of the Crimea, and hacked his way into 
the peninsula, while one of his subordinates took Azoff. 
Next year he followed up these triumphs with the capture 
of Ochakoff, an important Turkish stronghold on the 
Black Sea coast between the mouths of the Dnieper and 
the Dniester. The Sultan saw Bessarabia and Moldavia 
devastated by the Russian hosts, while simultaneously 
the Austrians threatened Servia and Bosnia. Had the 
Kaiser a general of the same stamp as the Tsarina, it 
would have fared ill with the Grand Signor. Fortu- 
nately for him, the prowess of one of his adversaries was 
neutralized by the imbecility of the other, and his losses 
in the eastern theatre of war were more than eclipsed by 
his achievements in the western. 

Austria sued for peace (September, 1739) ; and Russia, 
left alone and faced by serious financial difficulties, to 
say nothing of a victory-flushed Ottoman army, made a 
virtue of necessity. A month after the Kaiser's capitula- 
tion, the Tsarina agreed to restore to the Sultan nearly 
all her gains and to rest satisfied with her glory, which, 
after all, was the main object of her enterprise. Sterile 
of material advantage though this war proved to Russia, 
its moral effect upon the Turks was immense. We have 
it on the authority of a most competent witness that for 
fifteen years afterwards, " not only the Russian arms 
but their very name was dreaded by the Turks, and the 
Court of Petersburg acted (at Constantinople) as if it had 
a right to command." 1 

1 Porter, 251. 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 57 

However, the Sultan who had felt the edge of the 
Muscovite sword died in 1754, and immediately the pashas 
changed their attitude : " It is no longer Sultan Mah- 
mud's reign ! " they used to say, and the Russian en- 
croachments at which they had hitherto connived now 
moved them to vigorous remonstrance. The period 
of tension lasted till 1768, when the long-twisted cable 
snapped, and there ensued a conflict which, both on 
account of its duration and of its consequences, deserves 

a somewhat fuller notice. 

***** 

In the summer of that year the Polish troubles had 
reached a climax : the Confederates, who were morally 
supported by France and Turkey, were routed by the 
Dissidents who enjoyed the dubious blessing of Russia's 
military support, and a body of the defeated patriots 
sought among the Sultan's Tartar subjects refuge from 
the ferocity of Catherine II's Cossacks. They were 
pursued over the frontier by the Cossacks, who assaulted 
them in the town of Balta, killed many and made the 
rest prisoners, incidentally setting fire to the town. This 
outrage, magnified by rumour into a deliberate massacre 
of a thousand Moslem men, women and children, caused 
an outburst of frenetic indignation in Stambul. The 
city and its suburbs rang with the cry for revenge : only 
the blood of giaours could atone for the murder of True 
Believers. At the Porte a council was hastily called, the 
result of which was that messengers were forthwith sent 
to collect troops, and in a few days several companies of 
Janissaries and others were dispatched north. 1 

Catherine did not want war at that moment ; and her 

1 John Murray to the Earl of Shelburne, Aug. 1, 1768. This 
and. the other dispatches cited in the following pages will be found 
in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 44 

E 



58 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Resident at the Porte, Alexis Obreskoff, was profuse in 
apologies and excuses. But the Turks, instigated by 
the French Ambassador, M. de Vergennes, declined to 
listen. The Sultan had already made numberless and 
fruitless representations to the Petersburg Government 
on its interference with Poland's domestic affairs, and 
the Russian answer had always been the conventional one : 
Our troops are there only to restore order ; as soon as 
this laudable end is attained they shall be withdrawn. 
In vain did Obreskoff reiterate these assurances now, 
pledging " everything that can be dear to him for the 
sincerity of his Court." x The Porte's reply to all his 
protestations was : " Send the troops out of Poland." 2 
At last the explosion came. Early in October, M. 
Obreskoff was summoned to the Porte, He arrived 
with the whole of his staff, and, after being detained three- 
quarters of an hour in the ante-room, he was ushered 
into the Audience Chamber. The audience was very 
much to the point. No sooner had the Russian Minister 
sat down, and before he could utter a word, than tha Grand 
Vizier said to him : " Behold, the affair is reduced to 
this," — and he read out a paper the contents of which 
were in substance as follows: "The Poles are molested 
and harassed contrary to promise. The barges of the 
subjects of the Porte upon the Dniester were sunk by 
your troops. Balta was burnt, and there were Turks 
and Tartars killed. Upon the complaint of the Khan, 
the General of Kieff made no satisfaction, excusing him- 
self that this disorder arose from the Heidamacks, though 
it is certain they were Russians. You promised that 
the Russian troops should go away ; but they are still 
there. You said there were only seven thousand men in 

1 John Murray to the Earl of Shelburne, Aug. 17, 1768. 

2 The Same to the Same, Oct. 1, 1768. 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 59 

Poland, and without cannon ; but it is known that their 
number is much greater, and they have cannon : there- 
fore you are a traitor, and your treason is manifest. 
Wherefore an answer is now expected from you in two 
words : whether you will engage yourself formally, and 
with the guarantee of allies, to make the troops depart, 
or have war." 

The Resident was beginning an explanation, when the 
Grand Vizier cut him short : " This is not a place for 
conference. You must say in two words, you accept 
the proposal, or war." Obreskorx replied that the troops 
should be withdrawn as soon as the Polish affair was 
settled. The Grand Vizier, apparently not grasping the 
purport of this evasive statement as it was translated to 
him by the Dragoman, looked appeased and bade the 
Russian retire for a moment. Presently the Dragoman 
was sent to his master in the ante-room to ask if he would 
engage himself that his Government should desist from 
aiding the Dissidents and from all pretensions in Poland. 
The Minister answered that, this matter being entirely 
new and never mentioned before, he could not engage 
himself ; but that he would write to his Government for 
a categorical answer. The Grand Vizier retorted : 
' You have said thirty times already that you would 
write, and your categorical answer never comes. From 
this the Sultan concludes that you intend to surprise 
him." The Russian proudly rejoined that his Court 
had no intention of surprising a State with which it 
considered itself equal to treat openly any day. There- 
upon the Grand Vizier flew, according to custom, into a 
violent passion, and the Resident was told to wait for the 
Sultan's sublime orders. After waiting, with his attend- 
ants, nearly five hours, he received the Imperial command 
that he, three of his dragomans, his secretary, and two 



60 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

of his servants should be sent to the Seven Towers, the 
rest of his suite being at liberty to go to their homes. 
And, without further ado, Catherine's representative 
found himself in prison. 1 

Obreskoff was not unprepared for this stroke. Through 
his secret agents he had kept himself pretty well informed 
of what was going on at the Porte, and on the previous 
day he had gone, in great perturbation, to see the British 
Ambassador John Murray, and begged him to take his 
children under his protection, as their mother was an 
Englishwoman. 2 Murray very readily acceded; and 
as soon as he heard of his colleague's arrest, he hastened 
to write to the Grand Vizier that, at the parents' request 
and as their mother was an English lady, he had placed 
M. Obreskoff's four children under the care of their 
grandmother, so that they should not be exposed to 
accidents at the hands of the servants, adding that he 
would be particularly happy if he could obtain for their 
father, in consideration of his bad state of health, the 
favour of being confined in his own house — a boon which, 
if granted by the Fulgid Porte, out of its benign condescen- 
sion to the English Ambassador, could not fail to be highly 
appreciated by his royal master. 3 

The next day the Prussian Envoy also presented a 
Memorial to the same effect. But the Porte, instead of 
releasing the Russian Minister from the Seven Towers, 
sent there also his fourth dragoman, as well as another 
Russian diplomatist who had come to Constantinople 

1 John Murray to the Earl of Shelburne, Oct. 7 ; Oct. 10, 1768. 

8 She was the daughter of Mr. Peter Abbott, the Levant 
Company's late Treasurer at Constantinople. See the Abbott 
pedigree at the Heralds' College. 

8 The composition of this delicate document (in superlative 
Italian) gave the Ambassador much trouble, and he transcribes 
it with proportionate complacency. John Murray to the Earl of 
Shelburne, Oct. 10, 1768. 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 61 

some time before to relieve the ailing Obreskoff. The 
only thing this Anglo-Prussian intercession on their 
behalf did was to procure for the prisoners more humane 
treatment than had been experienced by other tenants 
of that dismal jail. The English Government, whose 
policy was to foil the French designs and to supplant 
Prussian influence both at Petersburg and at Con- 
stantinople, exerted itself to prevent a Russo-Turkish 
rupture. George III calculated that, by effecting a 
conciliation, he would reap a twofold gain : he would 
show the Tsarina how great was his power at the Porte 
for her good and, at the same time, cultivate that con- 
sideration from the Porte to which England, as the first 
maritime State, considered herself entitled. To that 
end, he wrote both to the Sultan and to the Grand Vizier, 
pleading for peace and signing himself their affectionate 
brother. Further, as nothing could be done in Turkey 
without bribery, the ambassador was authorized to 
spend eight or ten thousand dollars, should that sum be 
required, in order to obtain due attention for His 
Majesty's offer of mediation : it was highly necessary that 
the English advances, even though they might be un- 
successful, should at least meet with a respectful negative. 1 
Mr. Murray, armed with two royal epistles, lengthy 
instructions, which left little to his initiative and nothing 
to his imagination, and ten thousand dollars, had to 
persuade the Turks that it was to their interest to come 
to terms with the Tsarina ; to point out to them Russia's 
military superiority ; to tell them that they could not 
expect any future act of friendship from the only great 
Power in Europe that had invariably maintained a 
friendly attitude towards them, should they reject his 
interposition on that occasion ; and, though his instruc- 
1 Lord Weymouth to John Murray, Nov. 23, 1768. 



fa TURKEY. GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tions forbade any sort of menace or show of ill-himiour. 
to leave his hearers in some doubt as to His Majesty's 
conduct under such a disappointment. But it was all 
to no purpose. The Turks were in far too exalted a 
frame of mind to reason. The Sultan was dreaming 
of conquests. The populace was in a white heat of 
martial and religious fervour. And the few pashas who 
slrrank from a conflict with the Empire which had already 
given them such bitter proofs of its might felt that a 
moment had arrived at which no Government could 
accept a compromise without exciting at home discon- 
tents more formidable than any peril from without could 
possibly be. 

And of Turkey, at this hour, it could hardly be said 
that she had a Government. Ministers rose and fell 
every few weeks. One day the Sultan, when in a brave 
mood, called to orhce a bellicose Grand Vizier, and the 
next, when in a less heroic mood, he banished him. At 
such times he seemed to repent of having sent the Rus- 
sian Resident to the Seven Towers so hastily. But these 
lucid intervals were short-lived. The French Ambas- 
sador saw to it that no pacific Grand Vizier stayed in 
office, and the Sultan's favourites, upon whom the French 
arguments and presents were lavished, in their cups 
talked of nothing but war. The English ambassador, 
when all hopes of an accommodation were lost, renewed 
his efforts on M. ObreskofFs behalf, entreating the Porte, 
in the King's name, that he should be conducted safely 
to the Russian frontier or by sea to Italy, on account of 
his precarious health. His petition was well received, 
and the Pone proved so indulgent as to change the Rus- 
sian Minister's prison, transferring him from the Seven 
Towers to the house of the Keeper. 1 There he was 
1 John Murray to the Earl of Shelburne, Dec. i. 1768 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 63 

comfortably lodged for the duration of the war ; and 
four years later we find htm participating in the tedious 
negotiations w 7 hich resulted in the Peace of Kainarji 

(1774)- 

That Peace was the denouement to one of the worst 

staged military tragedies our planet has ever witnessed ; 
and it would need great assurance to decide which of the 
actors cut the most despicable figure. The Turks rushed 
into this adventure, on the spur of passion, in the autumn 
of 17G8. During the winter their preparations were 
pushed on with feverish inefficiency. The inhabitants 
of Constantinople busied themselves buying new arms 
and cleaning old ones. All the carpenters and caulkers 
were pressed into the arsenal. The bakers were employed 
in making an immense quantity of biscuit. The Sultan 
himself was frequently present at the springing of mines 
and firing of cannon. In the provinces the public criers 
summoned the militia to hold themselves ready to march 
towards the Dniester. Pardon was offered to an infinite 
number of bandits on condition that they should enlist. 
Throughout the Empire the levies daily grew, roads were 
mended, provisions of all kinds were hurried to the 
Polish frontier ; many foreign ships were freighted to 
go for corn to the Archipelago ; and many new magazines 
were built to receive it. Everywhere, from the Danube to 
the Euphrates, the local commanders of the feudal levies 
vied with each other in their display of costly equipages : 
tents of gold stuffs, standards of satin, silver-mounted 
weapons. 

Ordinary English observers, mistaking, as such ob- 
servers are apt to do, bustle for business, wrote home : 
" More provision has been made here for war in eight 
days than would have been done in any other nation 
in Europe in as many months." But less superficial 



64 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

persons had a different story to tell. New magazines 
for wheat had been built, but the Sultan found the 
greatest difficulty in filling them. For he allowed only 
fifteen pence a bushel, while the market price was half- 
a-crown : the Christian peasants preferred to burn their 
wheat. The Sultan had ordered a vast number of mules 
from Aleppo at twenty-two piastres each, while the 
market price was a hundred. So that the Syrian peasants 
complained loudly. All classes of people, once the first 
fury over, were in their hearts against the war, except 
the actual warriors and the ex-brigands. Hordes of 
such unruly Asiatic recruits were continually trans- 
ported to the European side of the Straits, spreading 
terror among the Grand Signor's peaceable subjects. 
It was no common war this — it was a Holy War (Jehad) : 
every soldier was a would-be martyr for the Faith — a 
candidate for heaven. He was therefore entitled to 
unlimited licence on earth. The Khan of Tartary sug- 
gested, and the Sultan sanctioned, the plan of sending 
a large body of Tartars through Moldavia into Poland, 
to prevent the Russians from entering the principality 
by laying waste all the country near it. The Tartars 
entered Moldavia and, apparently anxious to make 
assurance doubly sure, they began by laying waste the 
Sultan's own territory. They rode through the princi- 
pality killing, carrying off men, women, and children as 
slaves, pillaging churches, monasteries, houses, taking 
all the provisions they could find and burning what they 
could not carry away. These exploits threw the Sultan 
into great consternation and fear for his capital. In 
brief, the Turkish mobilization revealed all the ills from 
which Turkey was suffering, and not least of all the ill of 
impecuniosity : the Grand Signor's spirit was willing, 
but his purse was empty. The sinews for this crusade of 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 65 

True Believers, so far as they were supplied at all, were 
supplied by forced contributions from the infidel r ayahs : 
Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. 1 

On March 23, 1769, the banner of the Prophet was 
unfurled in Stambul ; and all unbelievers were forbidden 
to show themselves in the streets, which seethed with 
war-intoxicated fanatics, or even to look out of their 
windows. The huge Ottoman armies moved forth, and 
for five years their movements were those of a blind 
shapeless mass, blundering this way and that, with hardly 
any plan or thought for the morrow. Nor did the Rus- 
sians shine by any sort of capacity. Year after year the 
two brainless monsters came forth, met each other in 
many a bloody field, and disported themselves in scenes 
of unspeakable carnage and purposeless ruin. 2 But, 
other things being equal, the bigger mass was bound to 
shatter the smaller in the end; and the Sultan who 
plunged into this folly in haste was left to lament his 
fury at leisure. By the Treaty of Kainarji, Turkey lost her 
direct control of the Crimea ; Moldavia and Wallachia 
were virtually placed under Russian vassalage, and, 
moreover, Russia secured the privilege, insignificant in 
appearance and colossal in its consequences, of erecting 
in Constantinople a church on whose behalf she obtained 
the right to intervene as occasion should arise. This 
seemingly modest clause was interpreted by the Russians 
as a formal recognition of their claim to exercise over the 
Orthodox subjects of the Sultan the same protection 
which France, on a smaller scale, exercised over the 

1 This account of the Turkish mobilization is compiled chiefly 
from unpublished official dispatches : S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
No. 44. But I have also made some use of the Annual Register, 
1768. 

a See (if you think it worth your while) the Annual Register 
for the years 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773. 



66 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Catholic. Freedom of navigation in the Sultan's waters 
and the permission to fortify the Black Sea and to keep 
men-of-war on it, were some other items in the bill which 
Turkey had to pay for her rashness. 

3f* 3fC 5jC S)S S|S 

It is a characteristic of the Turks — a characteristic 
common to all people incapable of analytical thought — 
to judge things by their effect rather than by their in- 
trinsic quality. Their estimate of this foreign State or 
that was formed not on an examination of its real merits 
but on mere empiric observation of its success or failure. 
It was concrete facts that they wanted, leaving the 
inquiry into causes to more frivolous persons. Their 
rout at the hands of the Russians was a very concrete 
fact. They understood it, they hated it, and they re- 
spected it. Verily, the Muscovites were a great nation ! 
The old awe came back upon them — henceforth to possess 
and to paralyse their minds like a superstitious dread. 
They would never have dreamt of measuring swords with 
the Tsarina's clumsy strategists again, if the choice 
rested with them. Unfortunately it did not. 

Catherine, a lady as large in her views as she was in her 
vices, after her recent triumphs could not rest. Nothing 
less than the absorption of Constantinople would satisfy 
her over-stimulated appetite. With a woman's gift 
for details she planned it all out in her mind, forgetting 
not even the name for the future Emperor of the East. 
She had her youngest grandson christened Constantine, 
and already saw him in fancy crowned in the ancient 
cathedral of St. Sophia, according to the rites of the 
ancient Byzantine Caesars. Mixed with these feminine 
day-dreams were the more solid considerations which 
had long guided the rulers of Muscovy in their seaward 
march. It must be borne in mind that until the Crimea 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 67 

and other places on the Black Sea littoral were thrown 
open to them, Russian merchants could not carry on 
any trade with Constantinople and the Mediterranean. 

Impelled by all these motives of sentiment and policy, 
Catherine proceeded, in 1783, to the annexation of the 
Crimea, and other infringements of the treaty she had 
signed in 1774. This process of nibbling and nagging 
went on until Russia, in agreement with Austria, decided 
that the time had come to polish off the Turk for good 
(1788). General Suvaroff carried all before him, and the 
last hour of the Ottoman Empire seemed to have struck, 
when once more the clock was put back, partly by Austria's 
incurable inability to rise to the occasion, partly by the 
other European States' anxiety for the balance of power j 
but chiefly by the reopening of the Polish sore. Poland's 
end proved Turkey's reprieve ; and the Empress, post- 
poning the final kick to a more convenient season, patched 
up with the Grand Signor a peace (Treaty of Jassy, 
1792) whereby the whole northern coast of the Black 
Sea became an integral part of her dominions, and the 
Russian Empire also overstepped the Caucasus. 

The tempests which the French Revolution brought 
in its train retarded Russia's career in the Ottoman field, 
but did not arrest it. During the fifteen years of inter- 
mittent warfare which ended in Napoleon's downfall 
(1815) the Russians managed to wring from Turkey, 
successively, a protectorate over the Ionian Islands and 
the province of Bessarabia, while by the encouragement 
they gave to rebellious Servia they loosened the Sultan's 
hold on that part of the Balkan Peninsula. After the 
Servian came the Greek uprising to furnish Russia with 
a fresh excuse for promoting the disintegration of Otto- 
man power. In 1828 the Tsar's legions surged over the 
Balkans. Next year they reached Adrianople, and die- 



68 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tated terms by which yet another slice of Turkish territory 
was added to the Russian Empire in Asia, while in Europe 
Greece was declared an independent kingdom, Moldavia 
and Wallachia were definitely freed from Ottoman 
domination, and the Tsar, by imposing upon the Sultan 
an indemnity which the Sultan could not pay, placed a 
halter of perpetual pressure round his neck. By 1832 
Russian ascendancy on the Bosphorus was so firmly 
established that, when the Sultan found himself threat- 
ened by his rebel vassal Mohammed Ali of Egypt and Ali's 
French patrons, he was made to turn for protection — to 
the Tsar ; and a Russian fleet sailed into the Golden 
Horn. A spasmodic attempt at emancipation a few 
months afterwards resulted in the tightening of Russia's 
grip ; and an adroitly worded compact of " alliance " 
turned the Ottoman Empire into a Russian dependency. 
It is true that Western jealousy nullified this arrange- 
ment ; but it is none the less certain that the treaty in 
question marked another stage in Russia's slow yet sure 

progress towards the goal of her ambition. 
* * * * * 

Meanwhile Muscovite diplomacy, without losing sight 
of its fixed aim, had found it convenient to modify its 
methods. Until the first quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the Turks had known the Russians as remorseless but 
open enemies. Up to a certain period the Turk was the 
aggressor and fought the Russian for expansion ; then 
the tide turned, and he had to fight for self-preservation. 
But, whether acting on the offensive or on the defensive, 
he regarded Russia as an external danger only. From 
the time of Peter the Great, however, he had begun to 
feel the Russian finger in his internal troubles. When 
that Tsar sent his first Resident to the Porte in 1709, the 
Sultan knew that the mission was as much to his Orthodox 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 69 

subjects as to himself. He, therefore, made the 
residence of M. Tolstoi — an ancestor of the famous 
writer — as unpleasant as he could. Not daring to inter- 
fere with the Russian diplomatist's own movements, the 
Ottoman authorities forbade the Christians to have any 
intercourse with him ; and the latter were so frightened 
that they did not venture even to pass the house in which 
he lived. From this date the Court of Petersburg began 
its systematic intrigues for undermining the Sultan's 
power in every province of his Empire inhabited by 
members of the Eastern Church. Thus, while the walls 
of the Ottoman edifice were battered from without, its 
foundations were sapped from underneath. Russia ap- 
plied to Turkey the treatment which proved so successful 
in Poland. Her tactics, always embarrassing, became 
especially painful to the Turks in the nineteenth century. 
By that time the Turk had realized that he was sick. 
To foreign onlookers his condition had been patent for 
ages, 1 and not altogether hidden from himself. So 

1 Early in the 17th century Sir Thomas Roe described Turkey 
as " an old body, crazed through many vices, which remain when 
the youth and strength is decayed," and as " irrecoverably sick." 
Negotiations in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte (1621-1628), 22, 
126. In the Public Record Office I have found a document, un- 
signed and undated, but, judging from its contents and the hand- 
writing, penned by Lord Winchilsea some time in the spring of 
1669, and addressed "to Lord Arlington." He says: "That 
Empire is at a very low ebb and must have strange changes in a 
little time ; their weakness is apparent, they want not only money, 
and men, too, but brains to govern what they have. The City 
itself of Constantinople is easier to be sacked and burned by a 
foreign enemy than a village in England but five miles from the 
seashore, and if the Venetians have a mind to attempt it, seven 
or eight ships well provided is enough to enter the port and return 
in despite of their castles, and if it were well managed, and the 
wind should serve fair, they may take the spoil of the Seraglio 
whilst the City is flaming to give them light ; if we had war with 
them, as they have, I should be happy to have such a command 
for I should not shame my country or self." S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 19. 



70 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

long ago as 1630 Murad IV saw the canker that was eating 
into the very vitals of his country and tried a cure by 
the terribly simple method of cutting off the head of every 
public functionary guilty, or even merely suspected, of 
corrupt practices. In the next generation the fierce 
old Grand Vizier Mohammed Kuprili attempted the same 
task and in the same manner ; but without effect. For 
very few of their compatriots shared the sagacity or 
honesty of these statesmen. It required the convulsions 
and disasters of another hundred years or more to shake 
the Turk out of his infatuated self-complacency, to make 
him perceive that, while the nations of Europe were 
progressing, he had been stagnating, that, if he wished 
to survive, he must reform. But, if late, this truth had 
penetrated at length the Ottoman head, and Selim III 
(1789-1807) initiated the process of innovation. His 
efforts were wrecked by the opposition of the conservative 
forces among his own subjects. But, though Selim had 
to pay for his patriotism with his life, his work was carried 
on by his successors Mahmud II (1 808-1839) an d Abdul- 
Mejid (1839-1861). 

Whether this tardy experiment in regeneration would 
have succeeded if the Turk had been left alone, no one 
can tell. It may very reasonably be held that the disease 
had gone too far and that nothing short of a miracle could 
have cured a body so thoroughly permeated with multi- 
tudinous corruption. But it is certain that the invalid 
was not given a chance to show whether any spring of 
vitality remained in him. The Sultans at every turn 
met the Tsar's diplomatic agents, avowed and secret, 
intriguing against the reformers, encouraging the re- 
actionaries, instigating the Christian rayahs to revolt, 
turning confusion into chaos. 1 In 1853 the Tsar threw 

1 See Sir A. Henry Layard's Autobiography and Letters^ ii. 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 71 

off the mask and openly proposed to England a dismem- 
berment of the Sick Man's body. England's answer was 
the Crimean War. 

By the Treaty of Paris (1856), Russia, together with the 
other signatories, pledged herself to respect the integrity 
of the Ottoman Empire ; but apparently the pledge did 
not include abstention from the things which made for 
disintegration. Under Russian auspices the propaganda 
for the national rehabilitation of the Sultan's Slavonic 
subjects made headway year after year, and the efforts 
of Turkish reformers to conciliate the discontented rayahs, 
by removing the administrative abuses and other griev- 
ances of which they justly complained, were thwarted 
by Russian intrigues. The Tsar's ambassador, General 
Ignatieff , spared no pains or money to prevent the success 
of any measure calculated to tranquillize and invigorate 
a country which his master had condemned to death. 
His consuls and secret agents, working hand-in-hand 
with the emissaries of the Pan-Slav Committees of Moscow 
and Kieff, overran the Balkan Peninsula, preaching the 
gospel of rebellion, while the arch-intriguer himself 
sat at the centre of the web, playing with consummate 
astuteness on the vices and fears of the feeble-minded 
Sultan Adbul Aziz (1 861-1876). * 

Things came to a head in 1875, when the carefully 
laid mines exploded in quick succession, as at a precon- 
certed signal : Bosnia and Herzegovina rose in arms, 
Servia and Montenegro followed, Bulgaria brought up 
the rear. In a few months the Balkans from end to end 
were converted into a theatre of butchery and counter- 

1 See The Life of Midhat Pasha. By his son Ali Haydar Mid- 
hat Bey. (London, 1903.) Lord Lyons to Lord Stanley, Dec. 
19, 1866 ; April 10, 1867, in Lord Newton's life of Lord Lyons, i. 
159-160, 166-167. 



72 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

butchery. General Ignatieff took good care that the 
misdeeds of the Slavs should be minimized and those 
of the Turks magnified, for the benefit of a credulous 
and uninformed Western public. 1 The patriotic party 
at Constantinople saw that there was no time to lose 
if the Empire was to be saved. Abdul Aziz was de- 
throned (May 30, 1876), and was succeeded by the un- 
happy Murad, who, in his turn, after a few weeks proved 
mentally unfit, and was replaced by Abdul Hamid (Sep- 
tember 1). Simultaneously, the famous Midhat Pasha 
" the most energetic and liberal of the Turkish statesmen 
. . . the hope of the Mussulman reformers and of the 
Christians," 2 assumed the control of affairs, and induced 
the Sultan to promulgate a Constitution. 

Russia, alarmed at this new turn, hastened matters, 
and in so doing she found herself in harmony with the 
Turkish reactionaries. Abdul Hamid got rid of Midhat 
Pasha and his reforms on February 5,1877 ; Russia smashed 
the Constitution by declaring war against Turkey on 
April 19. Austria, squared beforehand with the per- 
mission to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, and England 
wrought to a high pitch of anti-Turkish indignation by 
the one-sided and exaggerated accounts of atrocities 
which General Ignatieff had caused to be disseminated 
through his American and other dupes, left Russia to do 
her worst with Turkey. She did it so thoroughly that 

1 Some fresh illustrations of the gallant general's skill in de- 
ception have recently been supplied by the candour of his secre- 
tary at the time. See M. Nelidow's " Souvenirs " in the Revue 
des Deux Mondes, May 15, 1915, p. 331. They will cause no sur- 
prise to those who know how high his reputation for unveracity 
always stood even among diplomatists : witness Sir Horace 
Rumbold's Recollections, ii. 311-312. 

3 Sir Henry Elliot to the Earl of Derby, Dec. 19, 1876, in Blue 
Book, Turkey, 3 (1876), No. 105. Ample materials for this 
chapter of Ottoman history will be found in this and the other 
official publications : Turkey, 2 and 5 (1876) ; 1, 2, and 3 (1877). 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 73 

by the Peace which she dictated to the Sultan ten months 
after, at the doors of Constantinople (San Stefano, 
March 3, 1878), nearly the whole of his European domi- 
nions, and another slice of his Asiatic, were under one 
form or another removed from his sway. The Treaty of 
Berlin curtailed the Russian gains to some extent ; but 
the net result of the war was to leave Turkey diminished, 
impoverished, more sick than ever. 

For thirty years Abdul Hamid misruled the remnants 
of his Empire, too selfish or too wise to think beyond 
the needs of the hour, and Russia continued to exploit 
the discontent of the Slavs of Macedonia for the further- 
ance of her own plans. Her policy during this period 
need not be described in detail, for it differed on no 
material point from the policy she had pursued in the 
past. The outward expression varied according to cir- 
cumstances, the essence was ever the same. Both 
officially and privately her aim was to keep the embers 
smouldering so that she might blow them up into another 
conflagration whenever the opportune moment came. 

In 1903 that moment appeared tojpiave come. The 
Macedonian revolutionary organization redoubled its 
activity. Its bands were everywhere exhorting and 
terrorizing the peasantry to revolt. Outrages occurred 
every day. Even in Salonica the Bulgarian agitators 
had the hardihood to use bombs. Russia's consular 
representatives, while denouncing their crimes, secured 
their impunity. In Russia any popular disturbance was 
followed by wholesale executions, and hundreds were 
hanged without even the semblance of a trial ; in Mace- 
donia the Russian Consuls cried loudly against the enor- 
mity of the Turkish authorities as soon as these ventured 
even to banish persons convicted of murder and incen- 
diarism. Towards the close of summer a Turkish soldier 

F 



74 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

shot dead the Russian Consul at Monastir ; and the 
Russian fleet appeared off the Thracian coast. The 
revolutionaries, interpreting this as a tacit invitation to 
rise, rose. But Russia, just then entangled in the Far 
East, did not think it convenient to stir up serious trouble 
in the Near East. The Turks were allowed to quell 
the insurrection. 

But the fatal day had only been deferred, and in the 
next four years the fuel accumulated. The Powers were 
on the point of enforcing in Macedonia a scheme of 
" reforms " which really amounted to a severance of the 
province from the Ottoman Empire. Then Midhat 
Pasha's successors, the Young Turks, decided to ward 
off the catastrophe by resuscitating his essay in Constitu- 
tionalism (July, 1908). The avowed object of their 
revolution was to substitute equality for tyranny, and to 
replace anarchy by order. But behind this liberal pro- 
gramme lurked other designs. They failed, partly 
through their own insincerity and partly through Russia's 
hostility. Their insincerity alienated all Christian 
sympathizers from their cause, and brought back into 
being the movement for independence. Russia's hostility, 
by keeping the financial markets of the West closed to 
them, frustrated their efforts to cleanse and consolidate 
the administrative machine. Finally Russia dealt the 
death-blow at Turkey in Europe by instigating the forma- 
tion of the Balkan League which crushed the Turks out of 
Macedonia in 191 2. Many statesmen have been credited 
with that ephemeral achievement ; but whatever the 
part which each of them may have borne in the perform- 
ance, the real author was the Cabinet of Petersburg, and 
M. Hartwig, its representative at Belgrade, the leading 
actor. 1 

1 Russia's finger in that political pie has been revealed by 



RUSSIA AND THE TURKS 75 

Such, in broad outline, is the record of Russia's deal- 
ings with the Turk since she first came to know him ; 
and the Turk's feelings for her are those of a man for his 
evil genius — a mixture of dread and powerless hate. 

official documents recently made public. The Secret Annex to 
the Treaty of Friendship between Bulgaria and Servia (signed on 
Feb. 29, O.S., 1912) provides that, " if an agreement for joint 
action should be made, Russia is to be informed thereof, and if 
she be not opposed thereto, action shall be commenced. ... In 
the contrary event, if an agreement is not reached, the Allies will 
ask Russia for her opinion, which . . . shall be binding on both 
parties. ' ' Art. 2 provides for the division of the prospective spoils 
under the arbitation of the Tsar. See the full text in The Aspira- 
tions of Bulgaria, by " Balkanicus " (Eng. tr. 191 5). This was the 
ninth blow Turkey owed to her northern neighbour since the 
time of Peter the Great — the last act in a drama that went on 
generation after generation with implacable regularity. Russo- 
Turkish wars : 1709-n, 1736-9, 1768-74, 1788-92, 1806-12, 
1828-9, 1854-6, 1877-8. 



Chapter IV 

ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 

IN the month of May, 1583, the efforts to establish 
permanent relations between this country and 
Turkey, inaugurated by the commercial enterprise of two 
London citizens eight years before and seconded by the 
political insight of Queen Elizabeth, were sealed with 
success. On the third of that month the first English 
ambassador, Master William Harborne, loaded with rich 
presents from the Queen to the Grand Signor, was re- 
ceived in audience at the Seraglio, and the Levant Com- 
pany had the Ottoman markets opened to them on the 
same terms as those enjoyed by the merchants of France. 1 
Through this characteristic alliance between the Court 
and the City was established an Anglo- Ottoman con- 
nexion by which the interests of English policy were to be 
served no less than the interests of English trade. 2 Until 
then the Sultan had believed that England was a province 
of France. 3 Henceforth good care was taken to per- 

1 See Hakluyt, v. 167 foil. ; Calendar of Venetian State Papers, 
viii. An earlier patent granted by Suleiman the Magnificent to 
the intrepid commercial traveller Anthony Jenkinson at Aleppo 
in 1553 (Hakluyt, ibid, 109), had apparently fallen into oblivion. 

2 The alliance endured till 1825, when the Turkey Merchants 
surrendered their Charter to the Government. Throughout that 
period the English Ambassador at Constantinople was the joint 
servant of the Company and the Crown, deriving his appointment 
from both and his pay from the former, and reporting progress to 
both. 8 Birch's Memoirs, i. 36. 

76 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 77 

suade him that she was a Power at least as great as France. 
Moreover the Queen did not fail to draw his attention to 
the fact, or fable — very important in an age when religion 
was the useful handmaid of high diplomacy — that, where- 
as the French and many other Franks were idolaters, 
the English loathed graven images as intensely as the 
Turks and were, in truth, as like Moslems as mere Chris- 
tians could be. x 

Times had changed, indeed, since 151 8, when Henry 
VIII, in obedience to the Pope's behests, had j oined the 
Franco- Spanish league against the foe of the Cross 2 . 
They had changed even since 1576, when Elizabeth pro- 
posed a similar triple coalition against " the common 
enemy of Christendom, whose strength receives daily 
increase by this most unfortunate discord." 3 Now the 
English Queen's programme was to seek assistance for 
the Protestant cause in its struggle for life wheresoever 
such assistance could be found ; and to that end the 
Sultan's enmity towards Spain — since nothing could be 
done to shake his friendship for France — was exploited 
with much skill and no scurple. In 1587 she solicited 
the Grand Signor's co-operation " against that idolater, 
the King of Spain, who, relying on the help of the Pope and 
all idolatrous princes, designs to crush the Queen of 
England, and then to turn his whole power to the destruc- 

1 In her letters to the Sultan she emphatically styles herself 
" the most invincible and most mighty defender of the Christian 
Faith against all kind of idolaters of all that live among the 
Christians and falsely profess the Name of Christ." See Hakluyt, 
v. 171, 226. 

* An interesting fragment of his pious declaration to that effect 
is preserved among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, 
and has been printed by W. Roscoe in his Life of Leo the Tenth, ii. 
Appendix viii. 

3 See " Instructions to Randolphe, sent in special ambassage 
to France, April 2, 1576." Calendar of State Papers, Foreign 
Series (i575- I 577)> No. 719. 



78 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tion of the Sultan and make himself universal monarch." 
The Grand Signor was lavish of promises, though sin- 
gularly niggardly in performance. The defeat of 
Philip's Armada, which had long filled all Europe with 
alarm or hope, raised the Queen's prestige enormously at 
the Porte, but did not dispel her fear of Spain. Ten 
years later, when the son of the notorious Roderigo 
Lopez, Elizabeth's Jewish physician, who had been 
executed for receiving a bribe from the Government of 
Madrid to poison her, 1 came to Constantinople with 
letters from Philip offering the Sultan terms of peace, 
her ambassador hastened to supply the Sultan's Minis- 
ters with information which led to the envoy's imprison- 
ment. 2 To keep the hostility between Turkey and 
Spain flourishing was Elizabeth's constant pre- occupa- 
tion, and the Grand Signor's" favourites were sedulously 
cultivated to that end. 3 

Gifts, proportionate to the person and the occasion, 
formed the indispensable medium of all such intercourse 
between London and Stambul. Now and then we hear 
of the Queen or her ambassador honoured with some 
slight token of favour from the Grand Signor or the ladies 
of his harem ; but these were rare exceptions. 4 As a 

1 See Hume's History of England (ed. 1822), v. 311. 

2 Edward Barton to Sir Robert Cecil, Sept. 15, 1597 ; Sept. 25, 
enclosing copies of two letters from Spain brought by Lopez. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 3. 

3 Henry Lello to Sir Robert Cecil, July 15 ; July 29, 1598 ; 

o 

Jan. 3 ; Feb. 3, 159- . Ibid. 

* Two or three instances may be quoted. In 1593 the Sultana 
sent to the Queen the following presents : Two garments of cloth 
of silver, one girdle of cloth of silver, two handerchiefs wrought 
with gold, one shell of gold which covered the seal of her letter 
to Her Majesty, with two small diamonds and two small rubies — 
probable total value £120. (See the list with the cost of each item 
estimated, in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 2.) Some four years 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 79 

rule receiving was much more in the Turk's line than 
giving ; and Elizabeth, much as she herself suffered 
from the same predilection, would fain oblige him — at 
the Levant Company's expense. Each new ambassador 
had to bring presents for the Grand Signor and his Pashas 
amounting to several thousands of pounds ; and every 
six years another present of fifteen hundred pounds had 
to be given, besides the customary bakshish at all 
times. 

The idea of an Anglo- Spanish understanding based 
on joint action against the danger which seemed to 
threaten Europe from the side of the Ottoman Empire 
was still cherished by some Englishmen. In 1600 Sir 
Anthony Shirley came back from Persia to Europe with 
a commission from the Shah to induce the various Chris- 
tian Powers to form an alliance with him against the 
Sultan of Turkey, and he particularly desired that Eng- 
land should enter into political and commercial relations 
with the Persian Empire — an old plan of Anthony Jen- 
kinson's which had miscarried. Elizabeth, however, set 
her face firmly against all schemes of the sort. As soon 
as Sir Anthony arrived in Europe, her Secretary instructed 
the English Ambassador at Constantinople about Her 
Majesty's attitude in the matter, so that he might be able 
to meet any malicious misrepresentations made by Eng- 
land's enemies to the Porte : the Queen had nothing 
whatever to do with Sir Anthony and his foolish mission. 
His proj ects were entirely alien to her views. She heartily 
repudiated them, and forbade him her kingdom. Thus 

later the Sultan was so delighted with what the English Ambassa- 
dor said about Her Majesty's proceedings with Spain, that he made 
him a present : Edward Barton to Sir Robert Cecil, Feb. 2 and 21 , 
1596-7. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 3. Another present from 
the Queen Mother to Elizabeth is mentioned : Henry Lello to Sir 
Robert Cecil, Nov. 17, 1599. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 4. 



80 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

prepared in time, the Ambassador was in a position to 
reassure the Sultan. 1 

The idea was revived under James I. In 1607 Sir 
Anthony's brother Robert also appeared in Europe 
charged with a similar mission, and after visiting several 
Continental courts reached England in 1611, and was 
very graciously received by the King. 2 The Levant 
Company vigorously opposed his plan, for any agreement 
with Persia would have meant the alienation of Persia's 
mortal enemy, Turkey, and the ruin of their trade with 
the Eastern Mediterranean. But it met with a warm 
welcome from a number of prominent statesmen who had 
nothing to lose by its adoption — among them Francis 
Bacon. An Anglo- Spanish combination against the 
Turk, argued the philosopher, would stem the flood of 
barbarism and might lead even to more positive benefits 
for civilization. 3 These views, however, were far too 
large for diplomacy ; and the international rivalry went 
on at Constantinople to Turkey's advantage and to 
the common discredit of all the suitors for her friend- 
ship. 

England yielded to no nation in her efforts to gain 
and maintain the Sultan's favour by flattery, by bribery, 
by ceaseless intrigues and machinations against her rivals. 
The most formidable of these were the French, and it was 

1 Sir Robert Cecil to Henry Lello, Oct. 17, 1600 ; and dis- 
patches from the latter to the former in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
No. 4. 

2 Much has been written about these picturesque brothers, and 
the third member of the triad, Sir Thomas, of whom we shall have 
something to say in the sequel. But the ordinary reader will find 
all he may want to know in the Dictionary of National Biography. 

3 So far in advance of his age was Bacon that he urged that 
England and Spain should combine to establish a court of arbitra- 
tion by which all quarrels between European princes should be 
decided and a stop put to the effusion of Christian blood. See 
S. R. Gardiner's History of England, iii. 63. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 81 

from the antagonism between the Embassies of France 

and England that the pashas reaped their largest harvest. 

***** 

The French in Turkey looked upon the English as 
interlopers, and their Ambassador, M. de Germigny, had 
very nearly succeeded in ruining Harborne's work in 
1580 by inducing the Sultan to cancel the first charter 
granted to the new-comers. Harborne, however, man- 
aged to outbid his rival and to get the cancelled patent 
restored three years later. The enmity thus begun at 
the very moment of the two nations' contact in the Le- 
vant, was kept fresh by mutual injuries. One day the 
Englishman complains of insults offered to him by his 
French colleague, or jealously reports that the French 
King was presented by the Sultan with a sword of hon- 
our ; the next he gloats over the news that, on the Sultan 
hearing that the King of France made peace with Spain, 
the present was stopped at Chios, broken, disgraced, and 
returned to Stambul. The Frenchman, on his part, 
strove to diminish the Englishman's influence, now by 
spreading rumours of troubles in England, 1 now by try- 
ing to implicate the English Government in Sir Anthony 
Shirley's futile filibusterings in the Mediterranean. That 
worthy, after failing as a diplomatist, had turned admiral 
of the Spanish fleet in the Levant. England's enemies 
at Constantinople told the pashas that the galleons and 
galleys under his command were really English ships, 
that he had been to England and sailed thence to Spain 
with King James's licence " to take a banner there," and 
so to come with his fleet to the Archipelago and harry 



1 Barton to Cecil, May 14 ; Nov. 10, 1597 ; Lello to Cecil, 
ug. 12 and 26, 159 
Turkey, Nos. 3, 4. 



Aug. 12 and 26, 1598 ; Jan 12, z ^22. ; July 2, 1603. S.P. Foreign, 



82 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

the Grand Signor's maritime dominions. This calumny 
made so deep an impression upon the Turkish Ministers' 
brains that the English Ambassador had much ado to 
disabuse them : " yea," he exclaims, " I never could do 
it, had I not found two Persian renegades who testified 
with me that Sir Anthony, being banished from Eng- 
land in her Highness's (of famous memory) time, went 
to Persia, where serving a while, he departed thence, and 
ever since has been employed by the King of Spain." ' 
A striking illustration of this incessant rivalry is found 
in the pains which our representatives at the Porte went 
on taking for generations to procure for their sovereign 
the grandiose title assigned by the Turks to the King of 
France : "I thought it my duty," writes one of these 
gentlemen, " to stand thereupon, alleging His Majesty's 
greatness and titles not to be inferior to any prince in 
Christendom, and that unless the same might be men- 
tioned in the Capitulations equal to the French, I durst 
not without danger of my head accept them. For where- 
as in our Capitulations is specified ' Engliterra Kirali,' to 
wit the King of England, and in the French Capitulations 
' Franza Padishahi,' to wit the French King of Kings 
or Emperor, I thought it a great indignity that His 
Majesty's title should be so abused, which by our adver- 
saries is whispered into this ignorant people's ears to be 
inferior to the French King's — that made me bestir my- 
self and at last, though with great labour and strife, I 
have not only obtained the grant thereof, but the grant 
of many other very honourable points to be inserted into 
our new Capitulations — but I have not yet got them : 
often by reason of their inconstancy, upon never so small 

1 Sir Thomas Glover to Robert, Earl of Salisbury, March 24, 
161-. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 6. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 83 

instigation of our enemies here, they may recall them 
again, and therefore I work therein as secretly as pos- 
sible." 1 

As a matter of fact, this coveted designation remained 
the exclusive property of the French monarch ; and more 
than half a century afterwards the ambassador of Charles 
II tried to turn his French colleague de la Haye's dis- 
grace at the Porte to his own account : "I have used all 
means and neglected no endeavours to add this honour 
to my master, for when I saw the French interest here 
decline and then slighted, and at last to be quite thrown 
off, and the Ambassador himself after disgraced to be 
dismissed by command, without his letters of revocation 
from his King, I thought it a fit opportunity to catch 
up the honour which he had managed with such ill suc- 
cess." Among other things, he strove, in renewing the 
Capitulations, " to make new additions and insert the 
title of Padishah, which was anciently granted to the 
French king." 2 But his efforts proved no more suc- 
cessful than those of James I's representative had been. 

If the Turk's obstinate refusal of this honour to princes 
with whom he was on excellent terms vexed their en- 
voys, his continued bestowal of it on a monarch whom 
he insulted so outrageously in the persons of his ambassa- 
dors filled them with perplexity. As common sense was 
unable to solve the riddle, romance was invoked to pro- 
vide a solution. It was said that once upon a time a fair 
French lady found her way into the Grand Signor's 
harem and heart. She was made a Sultana, thus estab- 

1 Sir Thomas Glover to Robert, Earl of Salisbury, March 3, 
160-. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 5. 

2 Lord Winchilsea to Secretary Nicholas, June 12 ; Nov 

— , 1661. Ibid, No. 17. 

21 ' 



84 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

lishing between the Courts of Paris and Stambul ties of 
kinship such as did not exist between the Grand Signor 
and any other infidel sovereign. 1 In this way legends 
are invented to account for customs. 

Competition for prestige was embittered by squabbles 
for profit. And the lengths to which both sides were 
ready to go in their frantic lust of gold formed an object- 
lesson of European morality which was not lost upon the 
Turk. We may take as an instance a miserable cabal 
that lasted a dozen years and fills many large pages in 
our seventeenth century records. 

As there was no personal safety or liberty of traffic in 
the Grand Signor's dominions for any Frank whose 
Government had no special treaty with the Porte, such 
traders used to put themselves under the protection of 
the nations so favoured ; paying in return a percentage 
of the value of the merchandise protected, termed Con- 
sulage. Before the advent of the English on the Levan- 
tine scene this lucrative privilege belonged to the French, 
even English merchants trading under the French flag 
and paying to the French Ambassador a duty of two per 
cent, on incoming and outgoing goods. 2 But as soon as 
our enterprising compatriots established themselves in 
the Ottoman Empire, they began to dispute with their 
former protectors the privilege of protecting all unat- 
tached foreigners (" Forestiers"). 

Elizabeth's representative, Edward Barton, availing 
himself of the special favour in which the Queen at that 
time stood with the Sultan, contrived to wrest it from 
the French, and appointed a Consul at Alexandria to col- 
lect the tribute from traders in Egypt. The French 

1 Rica tit, 174. 

2 See " The Prime Institution of Consulage," a MS. by Sir 
Sackville Crow in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 85 

Ambassador, ;M. de Breves, watched for an opportunity 
of recovering his ancient prerogative, and when Barton 
left Constantinople to accompany the Sultan in his cam- 
paign against the Emperor (1596), he seized the chance 
offered by his rival's absence to turn the tables on him. 
In his eagerness, it would seem (though we must not for- 
get that we have only the English version of the story), 
Iff. de Breves overlooked some of the ten commandments 
in a most scandalous manner. He denounced the said 
Consul to the Porte as a spy (he was an Italian, Paulo 
Mariani by name) and caused him to be hanged, untried : 
" he was never permitted to answer for himself, but sud- 
denly taken, and presently executed." Barton, on his 
return from the wars a few months afterwards, pro- 
tested ; and, the matter being settled in his favour, 
another Consul was appointed at Alexandria — this time 
an Englishman named Benjamin Bishop. But on Bar- 
ton's death (1597) the French Ambassador prevailed on 
the Turks to have Mr. Benjamin Bishop shipped off in 
the first English vessel that came along, without even 
giving him time to arrange his affairs in Egypt. 

The French Consul at Alexandria enjoyed the two 
per cent, while the new English Ambassador, Mr. Henry 
Lello, having ingratiated himself with the Grand Signor 
by means of a present such as the French had never 
made him — nothing less than a mechanical church organ 
of monstrous size and marvellous design, 1 well suited to 

1 For a minute account of this giant toy, the manner of its 
dispatch to Constantinople in charge of its builder, of its reception 
there, the sensation it created in the Seraglio, and a thousand 
other entertaining and instructive details, see The Diary of 
Master Thomas Dallam, 1599-1600 (Printed for the Hakluyt 
Society, 1893) : a valuable work, wretchedly edited. The Intro- 
duction to it is by far the wildest piece of historical writing ever 
executed outside a lunatic asylum — a veritable nightmare of gross 
inaccuracies and grotesque anachronisms. 



86 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

captivate the Grand Signer's childish fancy — pressed his 
suit for a restoration of the privilege granted to his pre- 
decessor. The French Ambassador checkmated Lello 
by administering a bribe of six thousand sequins (£2,000) 
to the Grand Vizier. There ensued litigations between 
the two chiefs at the Porte, skirmishes between their ser- 
vants in the streets ; and the Grand Vizier found the 
quarrel so pretty and so profitable that he was loath to 
end it. At one moment he seemed to incline towards 
the Frenchman, and the latter crowed loudly that, not- 
withstanding the Queen's letters and presents, he had 
"thrown her honour into the dust and thereby purchased 
an extraordinary glory and fame unto his King and 
country." But anon the Grand Vizier changed his mind. 
At last the case was referred to the arbitration of the Bailo 
of Venice, and decided in favour of the English (1601). 

But the French were not beaten, and when Sir Thomas 
Glover succeeded Lello, in 1607, he had to fight the same 
battle over again. Meanwhile M. de Breves also had 
been replaced by the Baron de Salignac. The two new 
ambassadors fought with all the ardour of fresh cocks ; 
and presently Glover wrote home exultingly that he had 
won : " All the Flemings and all other merchants forest- 
iers whatsoever should come under the King of England's 
banner " — he had the articles in his hands, " sealed and 
affirmed by the Grand Signor's sign." In his exultation, 
he recapitulates the late French ambassador's " indirect 
and, I may well say, bloody circumventions," his " many 
unseemly, arrogant, and vainglorious speeches," and 
crows in his turn, " Now I have measured them the like 
measure ! " 

But apparently Glover did not yet know Turkey. The 
Frenchman, indignant and undaunted, brought all his 
influence to bear upon the Grand Vizier, and, in less than 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 87 

a fortnight, the fat was again in the fire. The litigants 
were ordered to submit their respective Capitulations for 
legal examination. But when Glover, armed with his 
documents and arguments, appeared at the Porte, he 
found the Grand Vizier ready to pronounce sentence. It 
was all a horrible mistake, he said — the grant of those 
articles : a mistake due to his own inexperience, and, unless 
it was corrected, he ran the risk of losing his head. The 
right of protection, he had found out since, belonged to 
the French, and the Bailo of Venice said so, too. Glover 
had better yield. The Englishman insisted that the 
matter should be investigated according to Moslem law, 
declaring that he was prepared to abide by the result. 
The Vizier replied that he cared nothing for laws. The 
privilege, whether by right or sinister means he knew not, 
had been formerly included in the French Capitulations, 
and he simply dared not abrogate it : his head was dearer 
to him than any man's pleasure. The Englishman then 
lost his temper. Until his own sovereign ordered him to 
give up a grant lawfully obtained, he would stick to it. 
He stood in as much fear for his head as the Vizier for his. 
Next it was the Turk's turn to lose his temper. He broke 
into " furious speeches " and threatened to inform Glover's 
King that he had an ambassador " more fit to have been 
employed in some warlike affairs, to get towns and castles " 
than in negotiations. They bellowed at each other for a 
long time, and then parted in mutual fury. 

The truth is that Glover did not shine as a tactician. 
He appears to have been a man with a great gift for mak- 
ing enemies. The French Ambassador had managed to 
get on his side, not only the Turks, but the Venetian Bailo 
as well, and Glover's own predecessor Lello, who still 
tarried at Constantinople — probably, as Glover asserted, 
in the hope of supplanting his supplanter. All these 



88 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

joined forces against Glover, who was even threatened 
with assassination : the Venetian Bailo sent him word 
privately that he should be careful, for he had many 
mortal enemies both within and without his walls ; par- 
ticularly a number of French soldiers of fortune who had 
surrendered a town in Hungary to the Turks and now 
served the Sultan. These mercenaries were greatly in- 
censed against their Ambassador's adversary and, the 
Venetian feared, they might murder him in the street. 
Whereupon Glover, though he distrusted the Venetian 
as a double-faced villain, thought it prudent to put it 
down in black and white that, if during Lello's presence 
in Constantinople, anything should happen to him, this 
document might testify to the King " that Mr. Lello 
was a principal instrumental cause thereof, and that he 
stayed here for no other end, but by murder to take away 
my life, and that by my untimely death he might re- 
possess my place." This extraordinary " certificate," 
based on not a shred of evidence other than the writer's 
own suspicions, His Majesty's Ambassador sealed with 
His Majesty's seal, delivered into the hands of his wife, 
and duly communicated the contents thereof to His 
Majesty's Secretary of State. 

For a while the English colony in the Ottoman capital 
was divided into two camps — Glover's adherents and 
Lello's : the latter including the Embassy preacher or 
chaplain, William Biddulph — a clergyman whom Glover 
describes to Lord Salisbury as " more factious than Mufti 
or the devil himself." All these persons, he averred, had 
entered into a conspiracy with the French Ambassador, 
and were plotting against him. First, they accused him 
to the Porte of having blasphemed the Turkish laws, so 
that he might be imprisoned. But fortunately the Grand 
Vizier himself saw through the stratagem. Next they 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 89 

proceeded to make an attempt on his life. Suddenly 
one day, the French mercenaries assaulted the Embassy! 
Glover immediately armed his own servants. There was 
a sanguinary fight in the gateway : "We killed two of 
them outright and maimed three without the least hurt 
on our behalf ; the residue took to their heels and fled 
away most shamefully." Glover complained to the 
Grand Vizier, and a dozen of the rogues were put into 
the galleys, whence after a couple of days they were 
released at the military authorities' instance. Glover's 
earnest demands to have at least two of them punished 
were fruitless : the miscreants were too useful to the 
Grand Signor. The Vizier thought that Glover should 
be satisfied with killing two of their comrades and maim- 
ing three. But Glover was not satisfied. He writes to 
Salisbury asking that the King of England should protest 
to the King of France and have the French Ambassador 
made an example of. 

Thus he goes on, inveighing against the wickedness of 
Frenchman, Turk, Venetian, and Englishman at immense 
length and with unflagging vehemence and variety of 
diction. Each of his numerous foes receives an ample 
share of abuse, but perhaps the one who gets most is " the 
old Venetian fox "—the Bailo— and "his cubs "—the 
Consuls of the Republic : " I do insure your Lordship, 
under pretext of friendship underhand they do what 
they can to drive us out of this country ; but I can sooner, 
if your Lordship will give me leave, uncase them and give 
their skins to the Turks to fur their coats." 

His Lordship could not see his way to sanction any 
such thing. He received, side by side with Glover's 
reams of gall and thunder, memorials from Lello's Eng- 
lish partisans at Constantinople, 1 as well as reports from 
Turkey ivf & d ° CUment ' dated A P ril *7, l6o 7> ™S.P. Foreign, 



go TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POW 

the English ambassador at Venice (Sir Henry Wotton, 
author of the immortal definition of an ambassador as 
" an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his 
country") — all of whom told a somewhat different tale. 
Thus enabled to see the other side of the question and to 
make allowances for temperament, Salisbury answered 
Glover's bloodthirsty tirades with characteristic common 
sense : Do not provoke the French more than you can 
help. If their ambassador is so disgusted at our rivalling 
him in prestige, much more would he be displeased if we 
deprived him of solid profit. Drop the matter for the 
present, and bide your time. Glover had no choice but 
to thank his Lordship " for that good caution, not doubt- 
ing but to keep the privileges, and to enjoy the fruits 
thereof whensoever your Lordship will uphold me to 
prosecute the matter." 

The French Ambassador appears to have received 
similar instructions from his Government ; for he invited 
his English adversary " to come to an agreement with him, 
and so live in peace and tranquillity, whereby not only 
all our affairs should pass the better amongst these in- 
fidels, but it would be pleasant and laudable amongst all 
other Christians here and elsewhere." Glover, finding 
no encouragement either from the Court or the Company, 
accepted these advances, and there followed a compro- 
mise. The two parties agreed to divide the consulage 
equally ; and " now the same being wholly and fully 
concluded, we live very affable and friendly with mutual 
correspondence and very often visiting of each other." 
Shortly afterwards there returned to Constantinople 
from the Persian frontier, where they had been fighting 
the Turk's battles, " those roguish French soldiers." 
On learning of the termination of hostilities between the 
two diplomatists, a colonel of them with a^dozen of his 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 91 

principal followers called on Glover and congratulated 
him ; " moreover offering himself that if he could do me 
any service with his person and his sword, I should find 
him as ready as ever he were and is for the French 
Ambassador." * 

***** 

There was one aspect of that unedifying affair which 
tended to our particular discredit in the eyes of the Turks : 
the revelation that the English were at loggerheads not 
only with other infidel dogs but also with themselves. 
This trait became even more evident during the Civil 
War, when the English colony in the Levant was rent by 
the same fierce politico-religious passions which divided 
the mother country. 2 

1 My information about this quarrel is derived from the follow- 
ing sources : Barton to Cecil, Feb. 2 and 21, 159- ; Lello to Cecil, 

7 
Oct. 21, 1599 ; Jan. 15 ; Jan. 28, M55 ; July 5 ; July 19, 1600 ; 



1600 



May 23, 1601 ; Glover to Salisbury, March 18, 160- ; April 1 ; 

7 
April 16 ; May 2 ; Sept. 9, 1607 ; July 2, 1608 ; Oct. 7 ; Oct. 22 ; 
Nov. 10, 1609. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6. Refer- 
ences to it are found in contemporary literature : e.g. Dallam's 
Diary (1599). P- 81 ; Sandys (1610), in Purchas, viii. 170. It 
broke out again sixty years later. See Sir Daniel Harvey to 
Lord Arlington, April 19, May 24, 1669, etc., in S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 19. 

2 Already in 1607 we see religious prejudice envenoming private 
and political feuds at Constantinople. In one of his voluminous 
diatribes against Lello, Glover says-: " under pretext of Puritan- 
ism he can forswear himself by equivocation and mental reserva- 
tion as clarkely as any Papist in England " (Glover to Salis- 
bury, June 19, 1607). In another he adds : " a most fraudulent 
and deceitful hypocrite who ever under pretext of Puritanism 
and godliness sought all means possible to cut his neighbours' 
throat and to defraud them of their goods " (to Sir Thomas Shir- 
ley, Aug. 25, 1607). On the other hand, Glover's Puritan chap- 
lain describes Lello as " a learned, wise, and religious English 
gentleman," who " first of all reformed his family, and afterwards 
so ordered himself in his whole carriage that he credited our 



92 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

At the outbreak of the troubles England was repre- 
sented at the Porte by Sir Sackville Crow — an ardent 
Royalist. His appointment to the post had been effected 
by pressure brought to bear on the Levant Company 
from the Court, in accordance with a policy which Charles I 
had been pursuing since his accession to the throne : 
the policy of pushing his own favourites into positions 
of trust, and thus securing obedient instruments of his 
will. Already in 1625 the King had attacked the Com- 
pany's right to elect the ambassador by insisting that 
they should accept a certain Sir Thomas Phillips — a 
creature of the Duke of Buckingham. The merchants 
at that time had offered a strenuous resistance to this 
high-handed interference with their freedom, declaring 
that, as the ambassador was paid by them, he should also 
be selected by them : a privilege which, for the rest, had 
been sanctioned by practice ; and plainly stating that 
they wished to have at Constantinople a man of intelli- 
gence, not a courtier. The King could no doubt do as 
he pleased ; but so could the Company : they declined 
point-blank to give the royal nominee a passage in any 
of their ships. Should, therefore, his Majesty persist, 
the ambassador would have to go to Turkey overland, by 
way of France to Italy, and thence by sea from Venice or 
Leghorn — at his Majesty's expense. 1 This did not suit 
his Majesty at all, and his candidate attempted to gain 
by flattery what the King could not get by force ; but 
the merchants remained unanimously firm, and the con- 
country ; and after ten years' government of the English Nation 
there, he returned into his country with the tears of many and 
with general good report of all Nations there dwelling or sojourn- 
ing " (W. Biddulph, in Purchas, viii. 259-260). 

1 The Tuscan Resident at the Court of Whitehall to H.S.H. the 
Grand Duke of Florence, London, April 24, 1626. Hist. MSS. 
Comm. Rep. XI. Pt. i. 58, 59. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 93 

flict between the Company and the Court was assuming 
dangerous dimensions, when a dramatic end was put to 
it by Phillips's opportune death. The ambassador ac- 
tually appointed then, Sir Peter Wyche, though also a 
courtier, was appointed by common agreement. But on 
the expiration of his term, in 1633, the King once more 
insisted on nominating his successor. The Company this 
time do not seem to have thought it expedient to demur ; 
but, as if to make up for the absence of friction on the 
matter of principle, a violent quarrel arose over a question 
of profit— our old friend the consulage. The King's 
nominee, Sir Sackville Crow, claimed in addition to his 
salary the duty levied on foreign merchandise shipped 
to or from Turkey under the English flag. 1 The Com- 
pany would not concede the perquisite. Presently Crow 
waived his claim, signed his contract, and received a sum 
of money in advance, when he treacherously refused to 
sail, unless he was granted the consulage. The dispute 
went on for two more years. But in the end a com- 
promise was reached, the ambassador pledging himself 
not to take any consulage during the first twelve months 
of his office, and not to trade on his own account. On 
these terms he sailed for Constantinople in the summer 
of 1638. 2 

1 See " My request to his Majesty and the grounds thereof," in 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 

2 Details of this prolonged controversy, derived from the Com- 
pany's Minutes, will be found in M. Epstein's Early History of the 
Levant Company (London, 1908), 81-89 : a meritorious pro- 
duction, suffering from a curious disregard of the calendar. The 
author too often forgets that in those days, and till 1752 the 
English year began on March 25, with the result that we have a 
letter read on " February 9, 1638," which was not written until 
t> November 17, 1638 " (p. 89), and similar miracles not a few : 

a due bit of topsy-turvy," as Carlyle once remarked when faced 
with editorial performances of the same nature, " being intro- 
duced into the spring of every year." 



94 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Crow's conduct in the East was such as might have 
been expected from his antecedents. The ill-will, after 
gathering strength for seven years, culminated in 1646, 
when he attempted to serve the King and to fill his own 
pocket by confiscating the property of the Parliament's 
partisans in Turkey, and getting them imprisoned. Where- 
upon the Parliament, at the request of the Company and 
with the King's unwilling consent, recalled him, and Sir 
Thomas Bendyshe was sent in his stead (1647). But 
Crow would not yield his place, and defended it with all 
the means at his disposal : his case being that Bendyshe 
had come out with a very disputable authority. Both 
belligerents appealed for help to the Porte. The pashas 
put themselves up to auction. Bendyshe outbid his rival. 
The English Embassy was invaded by the Sultan's 
officers. Crow was turned out of doors with his lady, chil- 
dren, and servants, was taken first to Smyrna, and thence 
to England, where he was immediately committed to the 
Tower (1648). The Committee for the Navy was ordered 
to investigate his case. But the investigation was cut 
short by the same events that cost Charles his head, and 
Crow remained in the Tower till 1656, awaiting trial. 1 

1 See a contemporary pamphlet : " Subtilty and Cruelty, or a 
True Relation of the Horrible and Unparalleled Abuses and 
Intolerable Oppressions exercised by Sir Sackville Crow, His 
Majesties Ambassador at Constantinople, and his Agents, in seiz- 
ing upon the Persons and Estates of the English Nation resident 
there, and at Smyrna, etc." (London, 1646) ; Letters from Charles I 
to the Sultan and the Grand Vizier, " Given at Our Court this 
21th January in the 22th yeare of Our Raigne, Anno Domini 
1646" ( = 1647), in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17; a Petition 
from the Levant Company to Oliver Cromwell, dated Oct. 20, 
1657, ibid. ; Sir Sackville's own Petition for reparation, House 
of Lords Calendar, July 12, 1660, Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. VII. 
115. For some evidence that Charles contemplated the confisca- 
tion of the English merchants' effects in Turkey to his use, and 
that he was encouraged to do so by the Venetians who, seeing in 
the Civil War a chance of ruining their English rivals in the Levant 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 95 

Meanwhile the breach between King and Parliament 
having become irreparable, and the English nation being 
split into two hostile armies, the Royalists in Turkey 
made common cause with the French, to the great horror 
of the Republican patriots. The strife reached its climax 
when, in 1650, there arose at] Constantinople one Sir 
Henry Hyde, with the title of Extraordinary Ambassador, 
claiming to bear a commission from the King " to estab- 
lish the trade of England in the Levant," and alleging 
that his Majesty had also written to Sir Thomas Ben- 
dyshe, ordering him to assist in the matter. Bendyshe 
treated Hyde and his commission with the utmost con- 
tempt, and issued a warrant forbidding English residents 
to countenance, abet, or aid Hyde in any way, or to 
accompany him either to the Grand Signor, Vizier, or 
any public minister. 1 

Hyde, finding few English sympathizers in the Otto- 
man capital, betook himself to Smyrna, where he fared 
no better The " English Nation " in that city received 
his summons in a cruelly sarcastic spirit : "We specially 
notice," they wrote, " that when you were at Constanti- 
nople nothing less would serve your turn than the title of 
Extraordinary Ambassador, now you being at Smyrna 
you title yourself Extraordinary Knight, and we do 
verily believe by that time (if not long before) you arrive 
... his Majesty, you will appear to the world an ex- 
traordinary Knave." By this time, it would seem, Hyde 
had modified his pretensions, now claiming only the Con- 
sulates of Smyrna, Chios, and Mytilene. But he was told 

trade, offered the King their assistance, see the narrative of Sir 
G. Talbot, the King's agent at Venice, in Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. 
III. 184. * 

1 See Sir Thomas Bendyshe to the Council of State, Aug. 6, 
1650, S.P. Foreign Turkey, No. 17 ; and for his Warrant, 
dated May 15, 1650 ; Hist, MSS. Comm. Rep. VII. 103. 



96 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

that these new claims were as false as his pretension to 
the Embassy had been, " since not a syllable from his 
Majesty either to the Grand Signor, Vizier, or our Am- 
bassador have mentioned any such matter or any colour 
either of Commission or instruction did ever appear in 
the Porte." 1 

In short, the majority of the merchants backed Ben- 
dyshe, who, after the manner that had become fashionable, 
caused the pretender to be seized and imprisoned, his 
houses to be ransacked, his goods and papers to be confis- 
cated, and himself to be forcibly deported to England, 
where, on his arrival, he was committed to the Tower, 
tried, and sentenced to death for high treason. 2 

Presently Bendyshe's own loyalty fell under suspicion. 
Some of the Roundheads in Turkey drew up against him 
a lengthy indictment, the chief counts of which were as 
follows. After getting rid of the impostor Hyde, he 
seized several " well- affected persons " and clapt them in 
chains, because they refused to acknowledge him as 
Charles II's Ambassador, which he swore he was. Then 
by offering the Grand Vizier a present of ten thousand 
dollars he had the Capitulations renewed in the name of 
that monarch. He was in correspondence with the 
King of Scots and several other notorious enemies of the 
Commonwealth beyond seas, and commanded his chap- 
lain to pray for the King of Scots' restoration to the 
government of England. Further he was charged with 

1 See " Answer to Sir Henry Hide's Summons from the English 
Nation at Smyrna," dated Aug. 3, 1650, in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
No. 17. 

2 At the Restoration his brothers petitioned the House of 
Lords that these arbitrary and malicious proceedings might be 
condemned and those responsible for them punished for their 
treachery, murder, and rapine by being excluded from the Act of 
Indemnity. See House of Lords Calendar, June 21, 1660, in 
Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. VII. 103. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 97 

using his ambassadorial power most tyrannically and ille- 
gally, by delivering up the persons and the estates of 
English merchants to the false pretences of Turks and 
Jews ; with doing nothing without bribes ; with having 
most inhumanly and unchristianly handed over divers 
free Englishmen into Turkish slavery ; with most un- 
christianly and traitorously assisting the Turk against the 
Venetians, by supplying him with ships, contrary to the 
law both of God and nations ; briefly, with a variety of 
crimes, by means of which our religion is scandalized, the 
honour of our country vilified, and our merchants mulcted. 1 
In 1653, when the term of Bendyshe's appointment 
expired, the Levant Company decided to recall him, and, 
the Parliament agreeing, wrote to the Sultan and the 
Grand Vizier, informing them of the ambassador's recall 
and of their wish that, pending the arrival of a per- 
manent successor, the bearer of their letters, Mr. Richard 
Lawrence, should act as Agent. But both the Company 
and the Government reckoned without their servant. 
It was a time when few Englishmen were inclined to obey 
distasteful orders. Bendyshe, taking a leaf out of Crow's 
book, refused to surrender the ambassadorial plum. The 
Turks were treated to another lucrative quarrel among 
their turbulent guests. Cromwell, apparently not fully 
realizing the seriousness of the deadlock at Constantinople, 
proceeded, after a fashion reminiscent of the Charles who 
had been beheaded for his arbitrary rule, to announce to 
the Levant Company the appointment of Richard Salwey, 
Esquire, " to succeed and remain our Ambassador in the 
Port of Constantinople." 2 

1 See " Articles of Treason and other high misdemeanours 
against Sir Thomas Bendyshe, Bart., Ambassador with the Grand 
Signor from the late King." S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 

2 Report from the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Jan. 24, 
1652 ( = 1653) ; Letters from the Parliament of the Common- 



98 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Company did not relish the idea of exchanging 
one tyrant for another, and some of its members had al- 
ready proposed to solicit his Highness to confirm Sir 
Thomas Bendyshe in his post, or else to " impose upon 
my Lord Protector some other person of their own choice." 
But there were people who considered that either of 
those measures was fraught with dangerous consequences 
to the State and " may deprive his Highness of the means 
to pursue an interest which in relation to the present 
conjuncture of Foreign Affairs may probably prove of 
exceeding importance to your service " — so wrote a well- 
informed adviser ; * and that obviously was Cromwell's 
view also. But even Cromwell had to bow to the might 
of circumstances. Finding that it was impossible to 
exact from Bendyshe obedience to his commands, he 
wisely connived at the ambassador's defiance, and let 
him stay on at Constantinople to the end of the Com- 
monwealth. 

* * * * . # 

A house divided against itself cannot expect much 

respect from its neighbours : when those neighbours 

happen to be primitive Turks, it gets none. English 

residents in the Sultan's dominions, after the death of 

Queen Elizabeth, found themselves as frequently exposed 

to the perfidy, cupidity, and cruelty of the pashas as any 

other Franks. Some of these acts of injustice proceeded 

from the Imperial Porte itself — the quarter " which," 

wealth of England to the Sultan and Grand Vizier, ' ' Given at 
Westminster, the last day of August, 1653 " ; Richard Lawrence 
to the Council of State, Constantinople, Feb. 10 ; March 22, 

3 
165- ; May 13 ; Dec. 8, 1654. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 

The Protector to the Company of Merchants trading in the 
Levant Seas, Whitehall, Aug. 14, 1654. Hist. MSS. Comm. 
Rep. XII. Pt. v. 410. 

3 
1 Paul Hagett to the Lord President, March 1, 165 -. S.P. 

Foreign, Turkey No. 17. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 99 

the sufferers observed, " should be the head and fountain 
of Justice." The remark occurs in a memorandum for 
a remonstrance to be addressed by Charles I to the Grand 
Signor on behalf of the Levant Company, and a letter 
from the same King contains an instance that aptly illus- 
trates it. His Majesty pointedly refers to " the violence 
lately committed at Smyrna." 1 

It was committed whilst Sir Thomas Roe represented 
the majesty of England at Constantinople, and the suit 
for restitution to the Company of the moneys wrong- 
fully extorted formed part of the damnosa hereditas which 
that diplomatist had bequeathed to his successor . Sir 
Peter Wyche. Sir Peter took up the matter, and pressed 
it on the Sultan's attention. It was a matter of some 
delicacy, the Governor of Smyrna, against whom the 
complaint was made, being the Grand Signor's own 
brother-in-law. Yet we find that this did not save him 
from the extreme penalty : a signal example of Imperial 
impartiality, you will say. Well, listen to the sequel, in 
the Ambassador's own words — 

" The Vizier desired me to desist from pressing it 
[i.e. the suit] any further, the offender having lost his 
head, and his widow being the Grand Signor's sister, 

1 " Heads to be presented to Mr. Secretary Coke, to prepare a 
letter from his Majesty to the Gr. Sigr. on the behalf of the Levant 
Company." This document is undated and found among S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 17 (1641-1662). But since Sir Peter 
Wyche is mentioned in it as "the King's Majesty's Ambassador 
resident at the Porte," and Wyche 's embassy covers the years 
1626-1639 (though he did not actually go to the East till the 
spring of 1628, he had been chosen to succeed Roe in the spring 
of 1626), it plainly belongs to an earlier Bundle, probably No. 14 
(1628-1629). I am inclined to think from internal evidence that 
it is the basis upon which was framed the King's letter to the 
Sultan referred to above. That letter is in the form of creden- 
tials, and it is endorsed " His Majesty to the Grand Sigr., by Sir 
Pet. Wich," S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 14. 



ioo TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

enjoying his estates, by whom that restitution ought to 
be made : and that himself, having formerly moved the 
Grand Signor therein, he found the pressing thereof to be 
so distasteful that he would not command nor give way 
to any course to be taken, so I fear I shall have no better 
success therein than my predecessor." x 

Even Sir Peter's style cannot rob the story of its 
inimitable point. 

It would be a pity to quit Smyrna without relating, 
from the annals of the next generation, another grim 
Anglo-Turkish episode for which that town furnished 
the stuff. Sir Thomas Bendyshe was then English Am- 
bassador at the Porte, and the Mufti (we have learnt 
since to call him Sheikh- ul- Islam) was his mortal enemy. 
That reverend gentleman had already given ample proof 
of his capacity for mischief " by many ill offices done to 
our nation to gratify the French and Sir Henry Hyde's 
party." That party, as we saw, had come to grief, and 
its champion could neither forget nor forgive the winners. 
Among the principal authors of the Mufti's discomfiture 
was the English Consul at Smyrna, and, as Allah would 
have it, the Cadi of Smyrna was the Mufti's nephew. It 
was not long before the two kinsmen put their heads to- 
gether, and resuscitated an old lawsuit between a mem- 
ber of the English Factory of Smyrna and an Armenian. 
The dispute being between a Frank and a subject of the 
Grand Signor's had to be tried by a Turkish judge, in the 
presence of the English Consular authority. The Turkish 
judge in this case being the aforesaid Cadi, the verdict 
was such as might have been foreseen. The English mer- 
chant was sentenced to unloose his purse-strings, and the 
English Consul was ordered to see the sentence duly 

1 Wyche to Conway, Aug-iL, 1628. S.P. Foreign, Turkey. N0.14. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 101 

carried out. The Consul, who knew that the Armenian's 
claim was false, refused to obey, and — " was seized on 
and rudely handled by the Cadi, and threatened with 
imprisonment, and several merchants there present were 
beaten down the stairs before his face." Then, aware 
that his judicial proceedings would soon reach the ears 
of^the Ambassador and of the Porte, the worthy Cadi 
forestalled complaint by sending to his uncle a report, 
attested by a number of terrorized witnesses, wherein he 
declared that the English Consul had insulted the Grand 
Signor and menaced the town with destruction, and 
therefore begged that this bad bold giaour might be 
removed. The scene is now shifted from Smyrna to 
Stambul. 

The Mufti, on receipt of this communication, sent a 
courteous message to the Ambassador, inviting him to 
his house : "he had somewhat of concernment " to im- 
part to him. The Ambassador, taken in by the tone of 
the message, went. The moment he appeared, the Mufti 
peremptorily requested him to displace the Consul — 
there and then : "he would admit of no time either for 
parley or proof." Bendyshe found himself confronted 
with the dilemma : to sacrifice his official dignity by 
yielding and establish a precedent pregnant with mischief 
for the future, or to risk his personal safety by resisting. 
He chose the latter course, and gave the Mufti " a flat 
denial, which so enraged him as he swore that I should 
either do it or should never go alive out of his house, and 
thereupon I was immediately seized upon and violently 
thrust out of the room, and rudely and uncivilly haled 
into another." What sort of a room that was, the Am- 
bassador does not explicitly state, but one can surmise 
from his phrase, " the injury was much aggravated by 
the nature of that place to which I was confined." 



102 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

In that place the representative of the Commonwealth 
of England, Scotland, and Ireland was kept for three 
and a half hours, " until it pleased God, by the favour and 
love of the three powerful men in the Porte, the Vizier, Jani- 
zary Aga, and Keiah Bey, I was released." The host 
hurled after the parting guest the words : " You are no 
longer Ambassador, nor the party you protect Consul ! " 

The Mufti had utilized those three and a half hours by 
pulling all the wires he could lay hands on in the Palace 
and the Porte to have Bendyshe committed to the " Black 
Sea Castle, a place from whence few are released but by 
death," and he had made so sure of success that, in anti- 
cipation of the event, he had sent letters to Smyrna, say- 
ing that it was already done, and that the Consul (who 
was then on his way to Constantinople " to lament 
against the Cadi ") would be apprehended as soon as he 
arrived and sent to join his chief in prison. 

Such was the wickedness of this Mufti. " But it 
pleased God to make his injustice and malice towards 
me the means of his own ruin ; for, once free, I so closely 
pursued this dishonourable act done against me and con- 
sequently to our Nation, that within three days after I 
thus suffered he was turned out of his place and ban- 
ished, and another, being my very great friend, immedi- 
ately invested therein. True it is that for this act much 
envy lieth on the Vizier, the General of the Janizaries, 
and his Lieutenant- General, and the new Mufti, whom 
the common people call ' Christians,' for this justice done 
on a Christian's complaint. However, this act hath vin- 
dicated not only all of my order and rank, but also the 
rest of our Nation, who, I hope, in matter of affronts, 
will hereafter be more cautiously dealt with." x 

1 Sir Thomas Bendyshe to the Council of State, June 10, 1651. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 103 

An essential condition for the fulfilment of this hope 
was that the ambassador should always have influential 
friends to take his side ; but this condition was unattain- 
able, a Turkish Minister's position being as unstable as 
the Imperial humour to which he owed it. Bendyshe 
soon found that out. x Not long afterwards there occurred 
an incident which taxed his ingenuity severely and 
showed the depth to which his country had sunk at 
Stambul. 

On some pretext or other, the Grand Vizier imposed 
upon the English merchants of Constantinople an avania 
of 70,000 dollars, and on their refusing to oblige him, 
caused their goods to be seized as soon as they arrived in 
port. Bendyshe could find no other way to justice than 
that which was open to any harassed Greek, Armenian, 
or Jew : a direct appeal to the Grand Signor from the 
rapacity of his servants. The formalities attending this 
supplication were of a peculiarly picturesque and humiliat- 
ing character : the suppliant had to put a pot of fire on 
his head, enter the Seraglio, and run straight to the Sul- 
tan's room. It was not lawful for any one to stop him 
until he reached the foot of the throne and offered his 
petition. It is scarcely necessary to say that no one had 
a chance of getting into the Seraglio at all, without a pre- 
vious arrangement with friends in Court. 

Bendyshe, under the stress of dire necessity, resolved 
to pocket his pride and adopt this method of procedure. 
But now he had no friends in Court who could help him 
to gain access to the Sultan. All the big turbans were 
banded together in an unholy league, because they all 
expected a share of the loot. He had recourse to a quaint 

1 Under date July 13, 1652, he writes : '* Viziers are so often 
changed, none abiding 12 months in their place, some not 9 
weeks." S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



104 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and very effective modification of the custom. There 
were at the moment eleven English ships lying in the 
Golden Horn. He ordered that every one of them should 
have pots of fire tied to its yard-arms and thus adorned 
anchor under the Grand Signor's windows. The strata- 
gem worked like a spell. Before the Grand Signor had 
time to notice the pageant, news of it was carried to the 
Grand Vizier ; and he instantly hastened, by a fair 
accommodation, to put out the fires which otherwise 
might have singed his own beard. 1 

The pashas gave no less eloquent evidence of their 
contempt for the English at this period by the attitude 
they adopted in some very delicate questions that arose 
out of their war for the conquest of Crete (i 645-1 669). 
While Bendyshe was blamed by his own countrymen for 
helping the Turk against the Venetians, the Turk blamed 
him for precisely the opposite offence. English ships 
were to be found not only provisioning the Venetian 
forces in the island, but also assisting in the victories of 
the Venetian fleets. In vain did the Ambassador plead 
that neither he nor his Government was responsible for 
these unfriendly acts. The Turks knew that the whole 
of Christendom, including even their French allies, was 
sympathetic towards their enemies. They knew that 
both afloat and ashore the Venetians enjoyed the enthu- 
siastic, or interested, assistance of numerous volunteers 
drawn from every part of Europe. The English were 
one of these hostile elements. The pashas, smarting 
under their losses, threatened that, unless the English 

1 Ricaut, 84. The fair accommodation consisted, I think, in 
a present of 3,000 dollars : unless the S.P. (the " Articles of 
Treason " already cited) from which I derive this, as well as the 
figure of the original claim, refers to some other transaction of 
similar kind about the same time, which is not very likely. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 105 

Government effectively stopped its subjects, the Capitu- 
lations would be taken away, which meant that the 
property and the persons of all Englishmen in the Otto- 
man Empire would automatically be placed outside the 
law. Meanwhile, they dealt in summary fashion with 
each case as it arose. 

In the summer of 1652 an English sea-captain was cap- 
tured by a Turkish squadron and brought into the port 
of Chios. A confession was extracted from him that he 
was in the Venetian service. Before the Ambassador 
could purchase his acquital, he was sold into slavery to- 
gether with his crew. A few weeks later another English 
captain was caught red-handed and was brought to Con- 
stantinople. The charge against him was that he had 
slain three hundred Turks before his ship was set on fire. 
He was sentenced by the Sultan to be hanged before the 
Ambassador's gate ; which would have been done, but 
for the Grand Vizier who, being in Bendyshe's pay, went 
three times to the Sultan, until he managed to have the 
man's sentence commuted to imprisonment. 1 

Another manifestation of Turkish feeling towards the 
English their representative experienced in his own 
person. One day at an audience at the Porte some of 
the Sultan's Ministers physically assisted the French 
Ambassador to pull Bendyshe back when he attempted 
to occupy the place of honour : an affront for which, 



1 Bendyshe to the Council of State, July 13, 1652. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. A peculiar pathos surrounds the 
fate of this unfortunate mariner — Captain Thomas Galilee, 
commander of the ship Releife. He was kept in captivity for 
eighteen long years. Successive ambassadors begged for his 
release in vain, until — at the conclusion of peace between Turkey 
and Venice — the Venetian Bailo, on the recommendation of his 
English colleague, included him among the Venetian prisoners 
who were then set free. See Sir Daniel Harvey to Joseph William- 
son, . . . Nov., 1670. i .P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 

H 



106 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

however, thanks to his friends in Court, he got abundant 
reparation. With equal spirit and success he resisted 
an attempt of the Porte to trick him into becoming surety 
for the good faith of English captains who agreed to carry 
Turkish soldiers and provisions to Crete — a condition 
in which the representatives of France and Holland had 
been forced to acquiesce. Bendyshe summoned the cap- 
tains to his house and kept them there, while he sent 
word to the Grand Vizier that he would see " my ships 
sink in their harbour rather than serve upon terms so 
dishonourable to our nation, and that I, being a public 
minister and representative, could not, would not, nor 
ought to be a pledge for any man." x 

Afloat no more respect was paid to the English flag, 
at this time, by the Sultan's officers, who often visited 
upon the innocent the sins of the guilty ; and it is hard to 
decide which of the two things was more disastrous to 
English residents — tame submission to robbery or suc- 
cessful escape. About 1655 an English merchantman 
bound for Egypt was met and chased by six Turkish men- 
of-war coming from Candia : in self-defence, he fired 
several shots and killed three Janissaries. As soon as 
the men-of-war arrived at Alexandria, and the English 
ship's feat became known to the authorities in Cairo, the 
English Consul was thrown into prison. 2 

At last things came to a head. The Turks, finding 
the war more and more of a drain on their resources, 
began to commandeer the English ships in their ports. 
The Venetians, seriously alarmed, presented, through 
their Agent in London, a long, urgent, and fulsome 
memorial to Cromwell, begging him " to vouchsafe to 
enjoin the English Ambassdor in Constantinople and all 

1 Bendyshe to the Council of-State, Dec. 22, 1651. S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 19. 2 Thevenot, i. 253. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 107 

the Consuls that reside in cities subject to the Turk 
strongly to oppose and not permit that this so stout and 
valorous a nation, who hath so often restrained and 
destroyed Pirates, should at present be violentated by 
the tyranny of the Turks and that its own arms should by 
main force be turned against the Christian Religion for 
which they have always gloriously fought." 

Cromwell acted with characteristic promptness. He 
writes to Bendyshe : " Right trusty and well beloved, 
we greet you well," and, after pointing out the damage 
that would be inflicted on English merchants by the seizure 
of their ships, and also the injustice that they should be 
forcibly employed against a friendly State, requests him 
to forbid all English ship masters to enlist themselves 
in the Sultan's service, and to communicate, at the first 
opportunity, this Resolution to the Grand Signor, " who, 
we are confident, will in no wise interpret it to any ill 
part, in regard of the common reason of the thing, and in 
regard of the moderation and equanimity wherewith we 
have always governed our affairs in relation to him." x 

This document — remarkable for its dignified firmness, 
and for its absolute freedom from cant — seems to have 
had the desired effect ; for never had England shown 
herself more formidable abroad than in the years which 
immediately followed the cessation of her domestic 
troubles. 

But all this was soon changed ; and the Ambassador 
of Charles II was made to do things far more " dishon- 
ourable to our nation " than those to which the represen- 
tative of Cromwell took exception. No sooner had Lord 
Winchilsea landed at Constantinople — and before he had 

1 Both the translation of the Venetian memorial, and the 
draft of the Protector's letter to Bendyshe are endorsed, "read, 
Jan. 8, i656(-7)." S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



io8 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

time, in accordance with the King's orders, " to desire 
the Grand Signor in our name that no English ship may 
be compelled to serve the Turks against the Christians " 
— than he was met with the demand for an English vessel 
to transport troops to Crete. He demurred to the re- 
quest, as contrary to the Capitulations and to the interests 
of English trade, but, " perceiving that there was Turkish 
fury and obstinacy in the resolution, I contended as far 
as with discretion and prudence I might, rather conniving 
at a small breach than to make a total rupture in the 
whole, and to permit one man to suffer rather than the 
generality to be ruined." This was just the attitude to 
encourage Turkish insolence. By and by the demand 
was repeated, and Winchilsea weakly reports, " none of 
my arguments or persuasions would prevail." When 
the Turkish preparations for a war against Austria began, 
the English Ambassador contemplated with impotent 
horror the prospect of being compelled to share the cam- 
paign — " with the hazards of the Plague, great expense 
and other inconveniences " — so that he might be used 
as an intermediary in peace negotiations. 

Yet, among the instructions this ambassador had 
taken out with him, was this : " You must by all means 
preserve and magnify the reputation and the strength and 
power of our Navy and of our command by sea, as being 
much superior to what it was in the time of any of our royal 
predecessors, and withal discreetly insinuate the danger 
which may attend their forcing us by ill usage to join 
with their enemies." Winchilsea did so : "I have upon 
all occasions both to the Vizier and Captain Bashaw and 
others endeavoured to instil an apprehension of my 
master's power and growing greatness." 1 

1 Winchilsea to Nicholas, March 4, — , 166- ; May 14, 1661 ; 

28 1 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 109 

The Turks could easily distinguish between the lion's 
skin and the animal it covered, and behaved accord- 
ingly. 1 

***** 

The whole reign of Charles II was for the English in 
Turkey a period of deep abasement ; but the oppression 
they suffered reached its greatest intensity under his 

Feb. 11, 166- ; Nov. 27, 1662 ; and Instructions for Lord Winchil- 
2 

sea. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 

1 Many instances of English ships commandeered during the 
Cretan War occur in the records of subsequent years. They are 
most instructive, throwing a flood of light on the depths to which 
England had sunk in Turkey under Cromwell's successor. At the 
beginning of his reign Charles II, urged by the Venetian Resident 
in London, made a feeble attempt to resist this form of Turkish 
arbitrariness — " if possible." (See The King to Winchilsea, 
April 26, 1661, in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17.) But later 
on his Majesty's representatives in the East not only submitted 
to oppression themselves, but resented bitterly any display of 
spirit on the part of private individuals. Here is a case in point : 
" We have lately run a great deal of hazard here through the 
refractoriness, falseness, and insolence of one Capt. Morgan now 
at Smyrna. 'Tis a wonder to me the Turks have been so tame in 
this occasion and proceeded, contrary to their style, with so much 
flegm and moderation where they have received the highest pro- 
vocations. . . . The particulars your Lordship will receive from 
the Consul at Smyrna." — Lord Winchilsea to Lord Arlington, 
March 26, 1668. The Consul writes : " I have been liable to many 
troubles and dangers of late through the occasion and necessity 
the Grand Signor has had to take up our ships for his service in 
Candia ; to avoid which, though I laboured what was possible, 
yet when I saw there was no remedy, I thought it both reason 
and prudence to submit ; but the obstinacy of the commanders 
of those ships, then in port, was so great, especially of one Capt. 
Morgan, master of the John and Abigail (though the voyage to 
Candia fell to him by lot), as exposed our whole nation here to 
eminent danger ; but it pleased God that matters succeeded 
beyond our expectation, and though Morgan was at last forced 
to the Grand Signor's service, no farther damage or avania befell 
the public." — Paul Ricaut to " My Lord," Smyrna, July 18, 1668. 
Morgan's " refractoriness " can easily be understood, seeing that 
his ship, and another commandeered together with it, " being 
heavy sails, 'tis to be feared will hardly escape the Venetians' 
clutches." — Unsigned letter from " Smyrna, June 1, 1668." 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 



no TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

last two ambassadors. Sir John Finch arrived at Con- 
stantinople in 1674, while the great Mohammed Kuprili's 
great son Ahmed still controlled the destinies of the 
Ottoman Empire, and this Grand Vizier knew how to 
temper tyranny with discretion. But his successor Mus- 
tafa richly deserved his epithet Kara, or " Black." His 
Grand Vizierate (1 676-1 683) marked one of the darkest 
eras both for his country and for the foreigners who dwelt 
in it : " My Lord," reported our ambassador, " affairs in 
this Court are incredible, indicible, nay really inconceiv- 
able. What is true to-day, is not so to-morrow. No 
promise is strong enough to bind. No reasons, be they 
never so cogent, powerful enough to persuade. Im- 
petuous passion, accompanied with avarice, overrules 
all laws and Capitulations." x 

The Grand Vizier had a Kehaya, or Assistant, of his 
own complexion, and the two between them devoted all 
the time they could spare from mismanaging the Sultan's 
affairs to the invention of pretexts for robbing his guests. 
Vast sums were screwed out of all the foreign ministers 
and merchants, including our own, by the simple expedi- 
ent of taking away the Capitulations. Sir John Finch, 
like his colleagues, had to repurchase at a fancy price 
the privileges which alone stood between the English 
colony and utter ruin. That, however, did not save him 
from further molestation. Both the Frank by giving 
and the Turk by exacting simply fulfilled their normal 
functions. So long as there was a cow to milk the Grand 
Vizier could not resist the temptation of milking her. 
The process culminated in an avania that brought the 
poor ambassador's career to a timely end. It was a case 

1 Sir John Finch to the Earl of Sunderland, Oct. %-, 1680. This 
J 18 

and all the other dispatches cited in the following pages are to be 

found in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS in 

for which even the annals of the Porte offer few parallels : 
the very sublime of tyranny, beyond which human in- 
justice cannot advance. 

About 1673 an English ship, the Mediterranean, on her 
way from Tunis to Tripoli, was stopped by a corsair in 
the service of the Duke of Florence and had a number of 
passengers, as well as a large quantity of goods and gold, 
belonging to the Pasha of Tunis taken out of her. The 
Pasha himself escaped ashore and reached Constantinople 
with his grievance. 1 The Sultan, in accordance with the 
favourite maxim of Turkish equity, held the whole English 
nation accountable for the misfortune that befell his 
servant under the aegis of one of its members : the rather 
because the Pasha had amassed his wealth by plundering 
Tunisian rebels. On the petition of the Levant Company 
Charles ordered Sir John Finch, his new ambassador to 
the Porte, who was at the moment at Genoa, to go to 
Florence and recover from the Duke the stolen property. 
At Leghorn Finch met an Aga whom the Pasha was 
sending to England on that very business, and entered 
into negotiations with him. The emissary was given to 
understand that the ship was no English ship : her mas- 
ter, indeed, was an Englishman, but he had changed his 
religion, deserted his country, and, having for ten years 
lived at Leghorn and being married there, become a 

1 Perhaps it should be rioted that this was the climax to a 
situation which had been developing for some time past : the same 
licensed ruffian, Domenico Franceschi by name, had in the pre- 
vious year plundered an English ship bound from Tunis to Smyrna 
and carried off her five Turkish passengers and their effects : 
" for whom," wrote our Ambassador at the time, " I very much 
fear an avania." See Sir Daniel Harvey to Lord Arlington, 

Jan. 24, and March 15, 167- , enclosing " A Relation of the Damage 

reed, by me Thomas Parker, master of the Lyon pinke, from a 
Corsair near the Island of Delos," dated " In Smyrna, Dec. 9, 
1671." 



ii2 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Florentine subject, so that the King of England was no 
longer concerned in him. With these explanations, " and 
other motives," he prevailed upon the Aga to give him 
a written and duly attested declaration that he had no 
claim against the Captain or any other Englishman, only 
suggesting that, as Finch was to be ambassador at the 
Porte, it would be taken kindly of him if he would, as a 
matter of favour, help a Pasha. Finch, after this stroke 
of diplomacy, proceeded to carry out his mission to the 
Duke. At Florence he obtained the restitution of 5,000 
dollars in ready money, and some of the stolen goods. 
From Florence, provided with the Duke's letters, he 
went to Malta, where he recovered seventy-five more 
bales of goods. At the same time he procured for the 
Aga the redemption of seven of the Pasha's people who 
had been sold into slavery ; one of these being the Pasha's 
sister-in-law, who afterwards became his wife. 

All these pieces of recovered property were delivered 
to the Aga, who with Finch and the English captain 
travelled to Turkey in the very ship from which they had 
been taken. At Smyrna Finch made the Aga give him 
before a Cadi a receipt for all the goods and a full dis- 
charge to the Captain, accompanied with a testimonial 
that the latter had behaved in all things faithfully. Finch 
arrived at Constantinople not a little pleased with him- 
self. But there he was to learn that, so far from being 
out of the wood, he had only just entered it. The Pasha 
was furious with his agent, and after drubbing him un- 
mercifully, dismissed him. When he recovered from the 
drubbing, the Aga went to Finch, informed him of all 
that had happened, and handed to him his written dis- 
missal, saying that the Pasha was a bad man, and that 
document might be of use to the Ambassador himself 
hereafter. And so, indeed, it proved. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 113 

The Pasha appealed to the Grand Vizier for compensa- 
tion by the Ambassador for such of his things as he alleged 
to be missing. The Vizier, far from countenancing the 
claim, publicly thanked Finch at his audience with him 
for the service he had done, and sent the Pasha away to 
a governorship in the uttermost confines of Arabia. 
Shortly afterwards, however, Ahmed Kuprili died and 
was succeeded by Kara Mustafa. During Mustafa's 
tenure of office the Pasha returned to Stambul and re- 
newed his suit against the Ambassador. It was then 
that Finch's troubles really began. 

The Grand Vizier appointed his Kehaya, the Rais 
Effendi, and the Chaoush-bashi to inquire into the case 
and submit to him a report. This done, he summoned 
both litigants to appear before him, in his great Audience 
Chamber, on Friday, September 3, 1680. The trial 
was conducted by a Grand Divan : the Vizier acting as 
President of the Court, with the two chief Cadis for 
assessors, in the presence of all the high Ministers of the 
Porte. He opened the proceedings by bidding the Pasha 
produce the list of his claims, declaring that, if he could 
prove his case, he would find him a just judge, and see the 
English Ambassador in the Seven Towers. The list was 
read out : the claim amounted to seven hundred purses, 
or 350,000 dollars. 

There ensued the following dialogue between the liti- 
gants — 

Finch : " Who has taken those goods ? " 

Pasha : " The Corsair." 

Finch : "He that has taken them, let him restore 
them." 

At this point the Vizier interposed angrily — 

" Ambassador, you and all other ambassadors are sent 
hither by your respective princes to answer for the lives 



ii4 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and estates of all Moslems all over the world that are 
damaged by your respective subjects, and you are here a 
hostage to answer for all damage done by the English 
all over the world." 

The case went on, Finch pleading his non-responsibility 
for the Captain who had long ceased to be an English 
subject, even if that man were to blame, which he was 
not ; and by dramatically producing at the proper 
moments, one after another, all the documents he had 
from the Pasha's agent, he demolished each of the Pasha's 
statements. The plaintiff was proved a person of trans- 
parent unveracity, and one of the two Cadis, whose busi- 
ness it was to give judgment, began to write down his 
sentence, when the Vizier, who had behaved in anything 
but a judicial fashion through the long trial, stopped 
him, saying that this cause could not be decided at one 
hearing. 

Finch left the Court with many misgivings and dismal 
forebodings, all of which were duly fulfilled. On the very 
next day, the Kehaya and the Rais Effendi sent for his 
Dragoman to inform him that, as the Pasha was a favour- 
ite at the Seraglio, the Grand Vizier would expect a very 
large sum of money to deliver the Ambassador from his 
prosecution. Finch replied that he could, as a gentleman, 
reward his friends, but could not as an ambassador enter 
into a bargain. This reply elicited a milder demand — 
only fifteen purses for the Vizier and seven for the other 
Ministers : altogether, 11,000 dollars. Finch positively 
declined to treat : he had a just case, " So remitting my- 
self to the justice of the Grand Vizier, I implored the 
Divine Protection, and should acquiesce in His Holy 
Will, happen what will." The answer to this was that 
Finch would repent his refusal. A few days later the 
Kehaya sent the Vizier's Jew to reiterate the proposal 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 115 

with, many threats. Finch reiterated his refusal ; and 
was left in a frame of mind which is clearly reflected in 
the words with which he concludes this portion of his 
narrative : " either victory or imprisonment of my person 
is like to be the result." l 

There was a second trial. Finch went to the Porte 
accompanied by five of the leading English merchants 
and his Dragoman ; and the dread of a Turkish dungeon 
went with them. When they saw how the trial was con- 
ducted, and how vehemently the Vizier overruled all 
that could be said for the defendants, they thought the 
dungeon unavoidable. At the critical moment, however, 
Finch had a happy thought : he asked that he might be 
allowed to write to his King for instructions. Bej'ond 
his own and everybody else's expectation, the Vizier, 
after some hesitation, granted the request. Thus sen- 
tence was put off, and the case adj ourned from the first of 
October to the last of February. The defendants returned 
home relieved, and most thankful for small mercies. 
The Ambassador congratulated himself on his cleverness 
and his luck. Time was eveiything : " chi da tempo, da 
vita. I should think that when the five months are 
expired, it would not be hard to get three months more." 2 

But it would seem that the Vizier in granting the 
respite had been taken off his guard. Upon second 
thoughts, realizing that he had created a precedent of 
which all other ambassadors would take advantage, he 
hastened to undo his mistake. He sent, through his 
Kehaya, to Finch a message to the effect that it was not 
necessary to write to his King, as the Pasha would be 
ashamed to go on with the case : wherefore he expected 

1 Dispatches dated Sept. 24 and 29, 1680. 

2 Finch to Sunderland, Oct. — 1680. 

12, 



n6 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

from the Ambassador a present of suitable dimensions. 
Finch replied that it was too late, as he had already 
written. Nor could he consider himself really freed 
from the Pasha's claims until sentence was given in his 
favour. The Kehaya insisted on a present, threatened 
the Ambassador with all sorts of pains and penalties, 
and, on failing to elicit a single asper, called his drago- 
mans " infidels " and " dogs " and dismissed them with 
the taunt, " Let your ambassador vaunt that he has out- 
witted us ! " The dragomans left the Porte surprised 
at having escaped a drubbing. Just then began the 
Feast of the Bairam, and Finch sent to the Sultan's 
Ministers the customary gifts. They disdainfully refused 
them : " which," the wretched Ambassador comments, 
" everyone that knows Turkey knows how to interpret : 
God Almighty protect me ! " x 

Panic-stricken, his Britannic Majesty's representative 
thought that, if he paid the Kehaya the respect of sending 
the gifts a day's journey, when the Vizier's Assistant 
was on his way to Adrianople, accompanied with the 
addition of " a rare pendulum, an excellent gold watch, 
and a long prospective glass," he would receive them. 
But he met with another ominous rebuff. Thereupon, 
at his wits' ends, he sent his dragoman to sound the 
Chief Commissioner of the Customs, who was the last 
man to take leave of the Kehaya. That worthy, scent- 
ing a chance of turning an honest penny, professed him- 
self entirely of the Ambassador's party. He had already, 
of his own accord, pleaded with the Kehaya, telling him 
that the King of England had suspended all commerce 
with Turkey (he had the news from the Hollanders) , and 
that now he must throw up his office and might shut up 

Q 

1 Finch to Jenkins, Oct. — , 1680. 
J 18 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 117 

the Custom House, the English being the only people 
who brought any considerable profit to it. On hearing 
this, the Commissioner affirmed, the Vizier's Assistant 
had looked thoughtful. He also told the Kislar Aga, or 
Chief Eunuch of the Sultan's Harem, the same thing ; and 
he advised Finch to stick to his guns. 1 

A month passed, in horrible suspense and terror, and 
then the Ambassador burst forth into a shout of relief : 
" God be praised that I can once write your Lordship 
good news out of Turkey." The Kehaya had his head 
cut off by order of the Sultan. His houses were sealed 
up. The whole of his estate was confiscated to the Im- 
perial Treasury. Gone was " this tyrant and worst of 
men : dead he is, and a great blow given by it to the Grand 
Vizier ! " 2 

Meanwhile Finch had obtained from the home authori- 
ties his release, and Lord Chandos had been appointed 
to take his thorny seat on the Bosphorus. When the 
fateful month of February came, he dispatched a drago- 
man to the Grand Vizier at Adrianople, informing him 
that the King, on account of the many sinister accidents 
that had befallen him in that post, had named a new 
ambassador. Therefore, it would be well to adjourn the 
case again, till the new envoy's arrival. The Vizier lis- 
tened to the dragoman with unwonted patience and 
readily assented : "so great and sudden a change does 
this taking away one Kehaya's head make in this vast 
Empire ! " 3 

The change continued. When the Vizier returned to 

1 Finch to Sunderland, Nov. — » 1680. 

10 

• Finch to Sunderland, Dec. — . 1680 

» Finch to Sunderland, Feb. — , 168°. 

19 1 



n8 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Constantinople, Finch, following the example of the other 
ambassadors, sent him a present : " which, though it was 
but a small one, he received with great kindness, present- 
ing my dragoman ten dollars, though never before he had 
given a penny." x 

The Rais Effendi followed suit. He sent Finch mes- 
sages assuring him that he might rest quiet, with a con- 
tented heart : the Pasha of Tunis would give no further 
trouble, " he having his beard in his hand," and offering 
the Ambassador his services. Finch returned a cautious 
answer, reciprocating his compliments, asking him to 
explain what he meant by " having the Bassa of Tunis his 
beard in his hand," and assuring him, in turn, that he still 
had " the power in my hand to gratify them that should 
do me right and revenge my cause." The Rais Effendi 
replied that he would unfold himself fully as soon as the 
new Ambassador arrived at Smyrna. In brief, Finch 
now felt, if not reprieved, at least rested: "like a bear 
that hath been firstly baited, I am left to some repose 
that I might recover strength, whilst other Ministers are 
brought upon the theatre." 2 

At last, to his immense joy, Lord Chandos arrived at 
Gallipoli. As at that time of year (July), the Etesian 
winds setting N.E. make sailing into the Sea of Marmora 
difficult, and Finch, sick with anxiety, could not afford 
to wait, he dispatched to Gallipoli a brigantine with 
twenty oars and four boats to facilitate his successor's 
voyage, and a letter informing him of the Rais Effendi's 
mysterious message. Lord Chandos replied that he was 

1 The Same to the Same, April — , 1681. 

22 

2 Finch to the Levant Company, May — , 1681 ; the Same to 
Jenkins, May — , 1681. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 119 

hastening all he could to communicate to him the King's 
commands and the Company's instructions, adding that 
he feared that their " latitude was not large on the sub- 
missive part." Upon receipt of this hint Finch put the 
Rais Effendi off. 1 

At the same moment there came to Constantinople 
news of the French Admiral de Quesne's defiance of the 
Sultan in Chios. Finch saw in this affair something to 
his advantage. While the Porte was entangled in a 
serious quarrel with the French, it would have no desire 
to push matters with the English to extremes. This 
calculation was justified by the event. Lord Chandos 
demanded and received full satisfaction on the two great 
points : every penny of the money extorted from Finch 
for restoring the Capitulations was refunded ; and the 
great avania on the score of the Pasha of Tunis was " for 
ever damn'd." Last, and what to poor Finch was per- 
sonally most important, he obtained from the Sultan 
permission to depart, and he only waited to recover his 
health sufficiently to embark on the ship that had brought 
his successor out. 2 

This phenomenal reasonableness, however, disappeared 
as soon as the Porte settled the French affair to its satis- 
faction. Another thing that contributed to a speedy 
recovery of its arrogance was the unseemly and injudicious 
alacrity of the English to resume commercial relations. 
Even while Chandos was still negotiating at Stambul, 
news came that the Levant Company were getting their 
ships ready for Turkey. The Grand Vizier, prompted 
by his Jewish adviser, saw in this proof that England 
was longing for trade at any price, and was not slow to 

1 Finch to Jenkins, July 25, 1681. 

2 Finch to Jenkins, Sept. 22, 1681 ; Chandos to the Same, 
Sept. 23. 



120 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

turn it to account. The nearer our ships drew and the 
greater " the rumour of a vast estate coming into his 
hands," the bolder and more extravagant grew his de- 
mands. Presently he broke the agreement he had made 
with Chandos on the pretence that in ancient times the 
English paid 3 per cent, duty on all the silk they exported 
from Turkey. The Commissioner of the Customs, forced, 
as he said in private, by the Vizier, drew up a retrospec- 
tive claim for five years' duty, amounting to 100,000 
dollars ; and the Vizier, summoning the Ambassador to 
his presence, told him that, if he did not obey his_ decree, 
he would " put him in irons." Lord Chandos held out 
for several days, but at last he was obliged to bargain, 
raising his offer from 50 to 80, and then to no purses, 
each purse being equal to 500 dollars. But the Vizier 
rejected the offer, detaining four of the Company's ships 
which were ready to sail from Smyrna richly laden. The 
English set to work to rescue their ships by " other 
means " — the phrase may cover any conceivable device 
— " wherein by a marvellous providence " they suc- 
ceeded. 

The Vizier's rage, on finding himself outmanoeuvred, 
knew no bounds. He immediately sent for the English 
merchants. The Ambassador refused to let them go, 
unless he went with them. After a day's parley he was 
permitted to do so. They went all together. As soon 
as they appeared, two of them were seized by the cha- 
oushes. The Ambassador tried to rescue them by force. 
He had the worst of the scuffle. The merchants were 
carried off to prison. Chandos began to pelt the Vizier 
with memorials ; and in the end he obtained their libera- 
tion, and the revocation of the 3 per cent, decree, for no 
purses. He explains to the home Government that there 
was absolutely no other way. For many days he and all 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 121 

the other Englishmen at Constantinople were " stuck at 

the pit's brink." He was ready to go in person and fight 

it out with the Grand Signor ; but he was prevented by 

the merchants' reasonings and entreaties. He hopes 

that " all is for the best, for there is not one instance of 

any one's having ever got any good by wrangling with 

this Vizier." * 

***** 

Miserable and dishonourable as were the terms on 
which the English lived in the capital of the Ottoman 
Empire and towns near it, they were tolerable, even 
enviable, when compared with the lot of sojourners in 
the provinces. Considerations of political expediency 
often restrained the Sultan and his Ministers from indulg- 
ing their cupidity to excess. This check did not exist 
in the case of the provincial governors — men of great 
power and no principle, who often were, had been, or 
were going to be in open rebellion against their own 
sovereign. The Grand Signor could not control these 
magnates as he controlled the pashas of the Porte. He 
ruled them with a loose rein, that he might rule them at 
all, and got such obedience as he could. Even when 
not prepared to defy the central authority, these govern- 
ors took full advantage of their geographical situation 
to oppress the stranger within their gate, presuming on 
distance alone as a guarantee of impunity. They rea- 
soned, and experience had demonstrated the correctness 
of their reasoning, that, so long as they observed some 
method and measure in their depredations, there was 
little danger of their doings coming to the knowledge of 
the . Sultan : the Franks would rather put up with 

1 Chandos to Jenkins, April H, 1682. Cp. the Same to the 

Same, Oct. — , 1682. 
21 



122 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

moderate tyranny than incur the cost of an appeal to 
Constantinople. Consequently even the best of local 
governors made a practice of violating the Capitulations, 
more or less, while the worst set no limit to their appetites. 
From the time of Queen Elizabeth onwards the records 
of the English Factories in Syria, in Cyprus, in Greece, 
teem with acts of extortion and oppression, varying in 
intensity according to the victims' wealth and distance 
from the centre of Imperial authority. 

Aleppo, the richest and remotest of the English colo- 
nies, x was particularly fertile in outrages. There, indeed, 
in the words of a seventeenth century Consul from whom 
we shall hear more presently, Injustice seemed to have 
erected her throne. Take some typical examples. 

In 1607 the Pasha of that place prepared to oppose 
the Grand Vizier by force of arms ; then he thought 
better of it and decided to lure him to destruction by the 
bait of bakshish. To that end he taxed all the people 
who had the privilege to live under his rule — natives and 
foreigners alike. The French and the Venetian Consuls 
were made to pay 5,000 dollars each ; the English only 
3,000. Whether the difference marked the measure of 
the Pasha's regard for the English or of their relative 
inferiority in financial resources, does not appear. In 
any case, the English felt no gratitude to him ; and their 
ambassador fervently prayed, " God grant (I say) it be the 
last they be surcharged withal in that kind ! " 2 

It was not ; far from it. 

Here is a later performance on a far grander scale and 
steeped in far more gorgeous local colour. 

1 Couriers used to cover the distance from Aleppo to Constanti- 
nople in three weeks. 

2 Glover to Salisbury, Oct. 25, 1607. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
No. 5. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 123 

In 1651 the governorship of Aleppo was assumed by 
one Ipser Pasha, who treated our Consul and nation 
with considerable kindness and civility until the end of the 
winter. But as soon as spring came, bringing with it 
great store of goods and gold to the Factory, he changed 
his attitude completely. Acting in collusion with the 
Commissioner of the Customs and the Cadi, he imposed a 
tax of 3 per cent, on moneys and a duty of five dollars 
per bale of silk ; and to ensure compliance he detained 
the merchandise in the Custom House. The Consul 
protested, but the Pasha was resolved to enforce payment 
as violently as he had decreed it unjustly. He began by 
menacing the Consul " with several ignominious deaths," 
and on finding him proof against intimidation, he pro- 
ceeded to action. His Janissaries first broke into the 
Consulate and dragged the Consul to prison ; then they 
marched to the house of the Levant Company's Treasurer 
and, breaking open his cash chests, carried away 8,000 
dollars. Next day they invaded the Consulate again, 
forced open a sealed cabinet and carried away 2,000 
dollars more. Couriers were forbidden to take any 
English letters to Constantinople on pain of death, nor 
did any of the English residents dare to undertake a 
journey thither for fear of being murdered on the way 
by some of the Pasha's instruments. At last with much 
difficulty and danger they managed to report their plight 
to the Ambassador. While awaiting an answer, they 
had other samples of Ipser's " contemptious and desse- 
crate violation of our Capitulations." Let the Consul 
himself tell his tale — 

" During these hot contentions ... it pleased God to 
suffer the plague to break out amongst some of our own 
Nation. . . . This caused an interruption for some time 
in our national meetings and consultations at Courts 



124 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

which in these extremities were almost every day and 
sometimes oftener. . . . We decided to repair to a 
Garden house (as usually in the summer we do) to take a 
little fresh air and there meet and advise together for the 
general safety ; which was no sooner done than this 
tyrant enforced from us most barbarously 4,000 dollars 
for this liberty (every day assumed by the poorest Franks 
and Natives). Wherein we producing our Capitulations 
and fresh Commands from the Grand Signor for this and 
greater liberties ... he grants his boyardee (warrant) 
to Bolluck Bassa, the Commander of his Infantry, to take 
us all into his miserable custody, and by this means en- 
forces the money." 1 

Another act in this tragedy must be postponed to an- 
other place. Suffice it to add here that for three months 
the poor sufferers awaited an answer from Constantinople 
in vain. But the Ambassador was not idle. He had 
duly received the news from Aleppo, but for some time 
he was at a loss how to act. The plaintiffs, while crying 
for justice, desired him " not to make any lament against 
Ipser Bassa, lest, being a desperate man, he might bereave 
them of their lives and the rest of their estates. So," 
goes on the puzzled diplomatist, " my work I have to do 
is this : First, I am to get justice done them for their 
wrongs, but not name the party wronging them. 
Secondly, I must find such friends in Court as to be 
believed on my bare word without any testimony, and 
that in a case, too, of so dangerous consequence that, if 
it be not cautiously and tenderly handled, may endanger 
a commotion in the Empire — truly the hardest task 
of this nature that I ever undertook in Turkey ! " 

" Yet it pleased God " to smooth the ambassador's 

1 Consul Riley to the Council of State, Aleppo, June 19 ; July 
24, 1652. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 125 

way. The Grand Vizier knew him well : he also knew 
Ipser Pasha. So when the Englishman went to him 
with his tale of woe, he gave credence to the giaour's word, 
and found a solution of the problem with a facility possible 
only to a Turkish Grand Vizier. Ipser Pasha, it is true, 
could not be touched ; but Ipser Pasha's accomplice, 
the Commissioner of the Customs, could : he was only a 
Jew. 1 

"So that, although Ipser Bassa was the principal agent 
and actor, and the Customer but his adviser or setter on, 
it was most expedient for all respects that an Imperial 
Command and a letter from the Vizier should be sent 
to Ipser Bassa and the Cadi, declaring my laments 
against the Customer, desiring them to force him imme- 
diately to make restitution of the money taken and to 
free the goods stopped or else send him up here to answer." 
The Vizier assured the Ambassador that Ipser Pasha 
would not disobey the Grand Signor's command for so 
small a matter : " The money will be paid," he said, 
" if the Jew be worth it, or his life will go for it." 

For such vicarious atonement there was precedent. 
Some three years before the Jew's uncle and predecessor 
in office had, for a similar injury done to the English of 
Aleppo, been, at the Ambassador's instance, " hanged 
there before the Custom House door." 

Having thus settled the actual trouble, the Ambassador 
thought fit to provide for the future also. He besought 
the Grand Vizier to remove Ipser Pasha from Aleppo, if 



1 In Egypt also the Customs were in the hands of Jews, who 
played an analogous role : "A Turk told me one day that the 
Jews were the Turks hounds for catching money from the 
Franks; for the Turks of themselves are neither malicious nor 
cunning enough to chase the prey ; but when once the Jews have 
made sure of the game, the Turks come and carry all away." 
Thevenot, i. 235. 



126 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

possible ; and the Grand Vizier promised to do so by 
offering Ipser the province of Damascus — " a place far 
better than this and, as I hear, will be acceptable to him." 

Promotion as a reward of worthlessness is not peculiar 
to Turkey. Nor, it must be owned, was, at that period, 
official rapacity. It so happens that in the very same 
dispatch in which the Ambassador reports Ipser Pasha's 
iniquities in Syria he also reports Consul Abbot's iniquities 
in Egypt ; and while he complained to the Vizier of the 
former, the Vizier overflowed with similar complaints of 
the latter : he had letters from Cairo reporting that all 
the Cadis and merchants dwelling near the Egyptian 
ports were in a state of profound distress " by reason of 
the defect of Trade caused by the great oppression Consul 
Abbot used towards all, as well ,-English as strangers' 
ships that came into that port under the English banner, 
imposing on them 12 per cent. Consulage, which ought 
not to exceed 3J." The parallel can be carried to the 
very last detail without departing one inch from the 
path of historic accuracy. The Vizier asked the Ambas- 
sador to remove the Consul. But Abbot was as powerful 
in his own way as Ipser was in his. Through his influence 
in London, he had got the Levant Company to tie the 
Ambassador by bond not to displace him without their 
consent. All that the Ambassador could do was to 
inform them of the Consul's proceedings " and conse- 
quently of the damage to the Commonwealth which 
would accrue by keeping of him in ; of which I could 
never to this day receive one syllable in answer." 1 

However, the sufferers of Aleppo were neither con- 
cerned nor consoled with such reflections. We feel only 
our own thorns, and see the beams in other people's eyes 

1 Sir Thomas Bendyshe to the Council of State, July 13, 1652. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. j 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 127 

only. These experiences confirmed their Consul in the 
opinion that the Turks " are a nation fitter to be traded 
with by hostages a-shipboard (as those in Barbary) 
rather than to be trusted with our persons and estates 
on shore." The only consolation they had in their 
affliction was the consolation which the Jews found in 
theirs : the belief in the approaching advent of the 
Messiah and the Millennium. It seemed to them that 
the world had reached the utmost limit of wickedness. 
Turkey was the most depraved part of the globe, and 
proportionate to its depravity was its decline. Says 
the Consul : "It seems to me to be in a visible declension : 
the king a child, the grandees factious and divided, and 
the whole frame of the tyranny in a most inconstant, 
unsettled position and seeming (by the present face of 
things as well as by the general injustice) to hasten on 
apace the accomplishment of those glorious promises 
that relate to the destruction thereof and the bringing 
in the Kings of the East and setting up the standard of 
our Lord Jesus the King of Kings even in the midst of 
these His greatest . . . (?) " 1 

But meanwhile ? Our Millennarian Consul, who had 
his full share of that singular, yet very usual, blend of 
religious enthusiasm with intensely practical sense, ad- 
vises that it would be well to withdraw the English 
Factories from the Levant for a while, as a lesson to the 
Turks. Their insolence sprang from the opinion that 
we could not subsist without the Turkey commerce — 



1 Consul Riley, ubi supra. 

It is worthy of note that only four years before this letter was 
written Sabbatai Zevi had arisen at Smyrna to fulfil the pro- 
phecies to which it alludes (1648), and some years later (1666) he 
made his triumphal entry into Aleppo. See my Israel in Europe, 
174-176. A contemporary account will be found in Ricaut's 
Memoirs, 200-219. 



128 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

" that, if they should bore out our eyes to-day, yet we 
would return to trade with them again to-morrrow, which 
opinion has been begotten and nourished by a long con- 
tinuance of the Levant Trade without intermission, 
notwithstanding all affronts to Ambassadors, Consuls, 
and merchants both at the Imperial Porte itself and at 
further distance, and has been the ground of many in- 
solences upon the Nation to the dishonour of the State 
itself." This suggestion, however, was no more acted 
upon than a similar advice given by the Levant Company 
itself twenty-four years before, 1 and the Turks were 
allowed to nurse their opinion that an Englishman's pride 
lay in his purse. 

Sjt 9fC (JC 9|C ^ 

There are two sides to every quarrel. 

It may sound strange at the present day, but in the 
seventeenth century the Grand Signor had frequent 
occasion to complain of the ravages committed on his 
seas and shores by English pirates. The grievance was 
of old standing. So far back as 1581 Elizabeth had to 
write to the Sultan promising redress for the outrages in 
the Levant of one Peter Baker of Radcliffe. 2 The evil 
grew worse towards the close of the Queen's reign, when 
old age, mental worries, and physical infirmities conspired 
to weaken her grasp on the helm. Then the Mediter- 
ranean began to swarm with English corsairs who de- 

1 Charles I was then recommended to instruct his ambassador, 
Sir Peter Wyche, to tell the Sultan that, unless- redress for our 
numerous grievances " may be forthwith had, and his Majesty's 
subjects enjoy the benefit of the Emperor's Capitulations, . . . 
his Majesty shall be enforced to command his ambassador from 
his residence there and his subjects the Merchants to withdraw 
their estates out of that country where they are liable to so great 
injustice and oppression and wholly desert the trade." See the 
" Heads to be presented to Mr. Secretary Coke, etc." already cited. 

2 Hakluyt, v 189. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 129 

spoiled friend and foe impartially, some of them declaring 
that they would not spare even English ships, if they 
got the chance, and trusting for impunity to the political 
confusion they anticipated to follow upon the Queen's 
death. 

For some time their favourite victims, apart from the 
Spaniards, were the French and the Venetians, with 
whom England was on excellent terms, and the represen- 
tatives of those Powers at the Porte filled the Sultan's 
ears with their denunciations of English turpitude, 
exaggerating genuine offences, inventing false ones, and 
trying by all means available " to indurate and congeal the 
hearts " of the Turks against us. The Sultan was any- 
thing but pleased with these depredations, perpetrated 
as they were at his gates and upon friends or upon enemies 
to whom, for the sake of his revenues, he gave liberty 
of traffic with his ports. But so long as he was not a 
direct sufferer, he took a comparatively philosophical 
view of the scandal. It was different when the English 
miscreants ventured to extend their attentions to his own 
subjects. 

Our Ambassador, while doing his best to soothe the 
Porte, did not cease to implore his own Government to 
put a stop to the scourge. Again and again he writes 
home, describing the situation he and his countrymen 
found themselves in. " There are seventeen English 
men of war within the Straits," he says, " and what is 
meant thereby I cannot imagine, unless it be to overthrow 
both us and our business in these parts." Incidents 
follow each other : An English ship has been taken by 
the Sultan's galleys of Rhodes, with Turkish captives 
and goods that the Pasha of Egypt was sending to Con- 
stantinople. Another English pirate has come even to 
the city of Chios and carried off a citizen's ship from the 



130 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

harbour. English sailors captured by the Turkish fleet 
are brought to Constantinople, and he is requested to 
hang them out of hand. He objects that it is not lawful 
for him to execute people : the men should be sent home 
to be dealt with according to English law and their 
deserts. The Porte insists, and the ambassador, afraid 
lest, if the men are allowed to remain in a Turkish prison, 
they may, through misery, ill-treatment, and despera- 
tion, renounce their faith, agrees to a compromise. He 
begs the Secretary of State to realize that these things 
impair the credit of English merchants in Turkey, imperil 
their estates, offend England's friends, and give " very 
great discontent " to the Grand Signor. " The trouble I 
have," he concludes, " is not so grievous unto me as the 
shame, for where before we were esteemed the chiefest 
friends of all Christians in this Court, now we are termed 
friendly thieves." 

To make bad worse, pirates of other nationalities — 
Maltese, Sicilians, Florentines, Sardinians — profiting by 
the terror which the English name inspired, used, " for 
their better enterprise and credit," to carry on their 
operations under the English banner and the name of 
Britons. Turkish Pashas unfavourable to us were only 
too ready to be deceived, while those who were on our side, 
seeing the truth of many of these charges, did not think 
it worth while to defend us against the false, but urged 
upon the ambassador the need of drastic measures for the 
sake of their own reputation as well as of ours. 

The home Government was much distressed by this 
state of things and gave the best proof of its desire to 
remedy it by instructing the ambassador to seize any 
English ships that should be found in a Turkish port 
without special licence from Her Majesty or the Lord 
Admiral. It would have given even more convincing 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 131 

proof by punishing, as the ambassador demanded, " some 
of these unprofitable members with death for an example 
to all others." But it could not do so, for the same reason 
for which Mrs. Glass could not cook her hare. 

The non-fulfilment of our repeated promises of amend- 
ment exasperated the Turks to such a degree that all 
decent Englishmen in Turkey would be glad to leave her 
and their troubles, and return home. The ambassador 
himself entreated Her Majesty's Secretary to cut his term 
of service short, stating that, if this were done, he would 
consider himself " most happy and bound unto your 
Honour for so great a favour and benefit." 1 

Sad as our position in the Levant was under the last 
of the Tudors, it became much more pitiable under the 
first of the Stuarts. James I, like his predecessor, was 
loud in protesting, through his representatives, "It is 
not our pleasure that English pirates and malefactors, 
whatsoever they be, be favoured or maintained — yea, 
that they be apprehended and severely punished." But 
this noble sentiment found even less practical expression 
than previous declarations of the same kind. In 1611 
the Venetian Bailo at Constantinople was busy assuring 
the Grand Signor, through the Bustanji Pasha, " who 
is the Grand Signor's fellow-drunkard and in greatest 
favour with him, that, if we might be kept out of the 
Straits, their seas would be very quiet." 2 It is true 
that the Venetian had his own reasons for inciting the 
Turks against the English ; but that his statements 
were not fictitious is shown by one of King James's own 

1 See Lello to Cecil, to Lord Admiral Earl of Nottingham, and 
to the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council, under dates Oct. 4, 
1600 ; April 2, May 29, 1602 ; Jan. 22, Feb. 26, i602( = 3) ; May 7, 
Dec. 10, 1603, etc. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 4. 

2 " Advertisements from Constantinople, Jan. 2, 1610-11 " in 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 6. 



132 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

agents in the East who, at the same time, reported : 
" these seas do swarm with English Pirates." 1 

Mixed with ordinary piracy was the form of brigandage 
licensed and dignified by the name of privateering. 
English gentlemen who perhaps would have scorned 
to rob a coach on land were proud to rob ships at sea, 
and contributed to the disturbance of England's relations 
with friendly states. In 1603 Sir Thomas Shirley set 
the example by sailing to the Archipelago with letters 
of marque from the Duke of Florence, the Sultan's enemy. 
With forty of his fellow-adventurers he landed in the 
island of Zia and attempted to carry off provisions. 
The islanders armed against the party, killed some of 
them, and, as the rest fled to their boats, Sir Thomas and 
two others were taken prisoners, and incarcerated at 
Negreponte. " The scandal is great," wrote the Am- 
bassador, when he heard the news, " and I half-ashamed 
to hear thereof." It grew greater still when the prisoners 
were transferred to Constantinople. The Ambassador 
did not know what to allege in excuse of Shirley's escapade 
and asked the King for instructions. James, instead of 
disowning the mischievous adventurer, as Elizabeth 
undoubtedly would have done, hastened to plead for him 
and to solicit his release. For three whole years negotia- 
tions for that unworthy object went on, and at last 
the King's prayers, backed by a present of 1,000 dollars 
to the Grand Vizier— for praying at the Porte always 
meant paying — won Shirley his freedom ; but his two 
friends, Captain Arnold and Mr. Strangwayes, continued 
for at least two more years in gaol, petitioning King 
James and Lord Salisbury that they might be begged or 

bought off. 2 

***** 

1 Jonas Aldrichto Salisbury, Feb. 14, i6io( = ii). S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 6. 
8 See numerous dispatches from Lello to Salisbury, their 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 133 

But it was during the reign of Charles I that English 
residents in Turkey suffered most from the consequences 
of their countrymen's love of adventure. After all, 
Sir Thomas Shirley did ,not materially hurt any one 
except himself. The damage he did was in the main 
moral. Such was not the case with Sir Kenelm Digby. 

This " errant mountebank," as one of his best friends 
described him, 1 before he began dabbling in botany, as- 
trology, alchemy, and philosophy, dabbled in politics and 
piracy. In 1627, being then twenty-four years of age, he 
secured from the King letters of marque for a buccaneering 
expedition in the Mediterranean. The real aim of his 
mission was to harass French trade ; for at that moment 
the King's favourite, Buckingham, was in the Isle of Rhe 
attacking France. In the royal commission, however, 
Sir Kenelm's voyage was described as undertaken " for 
the increase of his knowledge." With this he in his 
pocket and two ships under his command, the budding 
dilettante sailed from Deal, and, after working havoc 
among Flemish, Spanish, and Dutch vessels, he carried 
his thirst for knowledge to the Levant. 

Meanwhile he had added to his fleet, and on June 21, 
1628, he appeared, with five ships, at Scanderoon, the 

dates ranging from Feb. 26, 1603, to Feb. 25, 1606 ; also letters 

from Shirley to Salisbury (Nov. 8, Dec. 19, 1605 ; Feb. 25, 160^) 

6 
and other influential friends in England. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
Nos. 4 and 5. The latter bundle also contains a letter from Glover 
(dated Aug. 25, 1607) to Shirley, now at home, in which the 
writer tells his " Right Honble and verie lovinge friende " that 
his predecessor Lello, " hath coosened you in 1,000 dollars which 
he made you believe to have paid for your enlargement to the 
Vizier that was then — unto whom he never delivered a penny." 
It is pleasant to note that this letter found the valiant knight in 
the Tower, where he had been committed on a charge of illegal 
interference with the Levant Company's affairs in the East. 
1 John Evelyn, Diary, Nov. 7, 1651. 



134 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

port of Aleppo, where he had been told by the owners 
of his fleet that he might find some French vessels worth 
between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars. The owners, be it 
noted, were members of the Levant Company and had 
interests at Aleppo. They knew perfectly well that 
such an act in one of the Sultan's ports would be violently 
resented and severely punished by the Grand Signor. 
But they reckoned that the Aleppo Factory could settle 
the matter with the Turks at the cost of some 20,000 or 
30,000 dollars : and the balance would be net profit — to 
them and Digby. As it turned out, they reckoned with- 
out their hosts. 

On reaching Scanderoon, Digby found there riding at 
anchor, besides four French merchantmen, four Venetian 
galleasses and galleons. He sent a message to the com- 
mander of the latter, saying that he had come in only for 
rest and recuperation after a tedious and troublesome time 
at sea, and that he would not molest him in any way. But 
it appears that Digby's reputation as a student of matters 
marine had preceded him, or that the French had put 
themselves under the protection of the Venetians. At all 
events, the Venetian squadron made for Digby's and let 
fly with a view to frightening him away. Digby at first 
took these shots for a salute and returned the compliment. 
He was soon undeceived. There ensued a fight, in which 
the French merchantmen joined to the best of their 
ability. The Venetians after two or three hours had 
enough of it and sued for peace, expressing their sorrow 
for what had occurred, and leaving the French to their 
fate. 

The moment intelligence of the affair reached Aleppo, 
the Venetian and French Consuls ran to the Pasha and 
demanded justice, explaining to him that by this violation 
of the Grand Signor's dominions the English had forfeited 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 135 

their title to the Grand Signor's protection, and that 
consequently everything the English merchants possessed 
was at his mercy. The Pasha pricked up his ears : the 
property of the Aleppo Factory, in money and merchan- 
dise, amounted to 1,200,000 dollars. Before they knew 
what had taken place, all the English merchants found 
themselves in prison. The Consul offered his own person 
as a pledge and was committed to custody. The others 
were let out, but they were forbidden to do any business, 
and their warehouses were guarded by soldiers, lest any 
of the spoil should slip through the Pasha's fingers. 

Curiously enough, the French did not make much 
trouble, beyond presenting a grossly exaggerated claim 
for damages, alleging that they had been robbed by Digby 
of 150,000 dollars in cash, whereas their ships were 
really empty, cash and cargo having already been landed. 
But the Venetians, actuated partly by the desire to ruin 
their competitors out of the field, and partly by rage at 
the defeat of their fleet, seem to have displayed un- 
measured vindictiveness. Our Consul states that they 
tried to induce the Pasha, with offers of large sums of 
money, to impale and hang the English for rebels, or, as 
an alternative, to drive them out of the country naked. 

The English Consul obtained, at the price of 2,000 
dollars, permission to send down to Scanderoon three 
merchants to tell Digby what his exploit involved and 
to beseech him to restore his prizes ; which he did with 
a very bad grace. Then, having dispatched an express 
to Constantinople, the Consul decided, as at least six 
weeks would elapse before an answer could come, to save 
the colony's property from immediate confiscation by 
paying the Pasha a ransom of 50,000 dollars. 

As soon as the Consular report reached him, the Am- 
bassador set to work to whitewash Digby's action and 



136 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

to procure from the Porte the release of the Consul and 
restoration to the Factory of its liberty of trade. Later 
on, he also tried to obtain restitution of the 50,000 dollars, 
blaming the Consul for his panicky settlement by hard 
cash of an affair which he thought he himself could have 
settled by specious pleading. " But," as he remarked, 
"restitution of money was never yet procured from a 
Turk : his head more easily." Repeated Imperial com- 
mands to that effect were ignored by the Pasha. 

But that was not the worst. Sir Kenelm, after leaving 
Scanderoon, pursued his studies in the Greek Archipelago. 
Among other things, he was accused of carrying off some 
Turkish subjects and selling them at Leghorn. The 
friends of these unfortunates lodged a complaint at the 
Porte, and the Grand Vizier availed himself of a journey 
to Aleppo to hold an inquiry on the spot. In the mean- 
time the Venetians both at Constantinople and at Aleppo 
had been busy poisoning the Turkish mind. Whenever 
any Ottoman vessel came to grief — as they often did at 
the hands of the knights of Malta and other malefactors — 
the crime was laid at the door of the English ; and the 
Sultan's Ministers were urged to make those whom they 
had in their power pay for the sins of those beyond it. 
The situation had become so unendurable that some of 
the Aleppo merchants had already wound up their affairs 
and returned home, while the rest lived in perpetual fear 
for their purses and their lives. Such was the atmosphere 
in which the Vizier held his inquiry. 

The English Consul pleaded that no Englishman had a 
hand in the abduction of those poor Turks : the outrage 
really was the work of Sardinian corsairs. The Vizier, 
already prejudiced, refused to be convinced. In a 
transport of anger he caused the Consul's dragoman 
(a native) to be hanged, and^swore by the Sultan's head 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 137 

that he would hang the Consul, too ; but he relented 
to the extent of sending him to prison. The Consul was 
kept in a dungeon for seven days, and owed his deliverance 
— one is pleased to hear — to the generous efforts of the 
French Consul and the French Dragoman, more particu- 
larly the latter, who happened to be an old friend of the 
Vizier's. Thanks to this help, and, of course, lavish 
bakshish, the English colony got from the Vizier plenary 
absolution ; and the wretched English Consul could find 
no words wherewith to express his detestation of the 
treacherous Venetians, and his " obleidgment " to the 
French — but for whom, " we had long since bidden fare- 
well to a wicked world." 1 



1 My account of this affair is made up of the following mater- 
ials : Sir] Kenelm Digby to Sir Peter Wyche, from the Road of 

Scanderoon, June -^ ; the Same to Sir Isaac Wake, June -4 • 
23 24 

Sir Peter Wyche to Lord Conway, July — ; J— — ; Oct. 4, 

22 Aug. 5 

1628 ; Consul Potton's two reports, Aleppo, June 25, 1628, and 
Oct. 17, 1629. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 14. 

The kindness of the French is all the more remarkable because 
the rivalry between the two nations was at that moment at a very 
acute stage. Just before Digby's attack on their ships at Scan- 
deroon, had come a report of Buckingham's discomfiture at the 
Isle of Rhe, and the French Ambassador at Constantinople had 
hastened to make out of it all the political capital he could, caus- 
ing two French vessels that chanced to be in the Golden Horn to 
hale off into the Bosphorus abundantly beflagged and to fire all 
their guns twice or thrice. The effect upon the Turks was pre- 
cisely such as he intended : every man ran out to ask what was 
the meaning of the noisy display, and the Ambassador's servants, 
dispersed in the bazaar for the purpose, explained to all and sun- 
dry that their king had won a tremendous victory over the 
English. The English Ambassador, sorely vexed by this " foolish, 
vainglorious triumph," sent to the Porte to counteract its effect. 
He found that the Grand Vizier and the Capitan Pasha had also 
taken the performance ill. He blew upon the coals with such 
success that the masters and gunners of the French ships were 
forthwith " clapt in cold irons," and their ambassador, |to get 



138 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The animosity aroused among the Turks by Digby's 
escapade and the other piratical feats which had preceded 
it, was further swelled by several " unlucky accidents '' 
that followed : one day an English corsair seizing a rich 
Turkish vessel and, in defiance of the letters of safe 
conduct it carried from the English ambassador at the 
Porte, making a prize of it ; another day another English 
captain wresting from the Grand Signor's galleys a rich 
Genoese prize of their own ; and so forth. On each 
occasion the Turks threatened to indemnify themselves 
for their losses at sea by the confiscation of the English 
merchants' goods on land ; and it needed the combined 
energy of the ambassador at Constantinople and of the 
Government in London, such as it was, to avert those 
calamities by bringing the culprits to book, when that 
was possible, and restoring, reluctantly enough, the 
plunder to the rightful owners. 1 

What tended further to our national disgrace was the 
fact that many of these crimes were perpetrated not by 
professional pirates, nor even by romantically-disposed 
adventurers, but by ordinary mercantile vessels — some- 
times belonging to highly respectable merchants — whose 
masters, entering into the spirit of the times, liked to 
diversify the monotony of legitimate trade by " seeking 
purchase " of a more exciting sort. Mention has already 
been made of the two French captains who ran off with 

them released, had to go to the Porte to apologize in person : 
"where he received a sharp check and scorn for his;' vanity." 

Sir Thomas Roe to Lord Conway, J — -i , 162' S.P. Foreign, 

Feb. 5, 8 

Turkey, No. 14. 

1 See multitudinous correspondence on the subject Sir Peter, 

Wyche to Lord Conway, Oct. i-, Nov. 14, Dec. — , 1628 ; the 

14 24 22 

,^ Aug. 22, Sept. 21 Nov. 14 Nov. 28 

Same to Lord Dorchester, -g^ -^-p ^-^ , -555-5 

1629. Ibid. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 139 

their Turkish freights from Alexandria about 1655. It 
should be added here that together with them was an 
English captain, and that the English Consul and mer- 
chants in Egypt shared the comico-tragic punishment of 
the other European colonies. 1 

This form of English lawlessness passed away in time, 
but the privateering pest endured. Whenever Europe 
was distracted by war (and when was she not ?) English 
adventurers hastened to fish in the troubled waters of the 
Mediterranean, greatly to the disgust of the Sultan and 
the detriment of the English sojourners in his dominions. 
At such times even the captains of the Royal Navy, in 
their hunger for prizes, were often guilty of acts which 
cost their fellow-countrymen dearly. Two instances, 
drawn from two widely different ages, will suffice as illus- 
trations. 

At the beginning of the Commonwealth, although there 
was no war between England and France, there was a 
great deal of unofficial brigandage ; each side complaining 
of the piracies committed by the other, and having re- 
course to reprisals. In the spring of 1652 three English 
frigates arrived at Scanderoon, convoying the Levant 
Company's mercantile fleet. The French Consul at 
Aleppo protested to the Governor, Ipser Pasha, that his 
own merchant ships durst neither go out nor come into 
port for fear of these men of war. The Pasha, who, as we 
have seen, was at that very moment busy fleecing the 
English, snatched at this fresh excuse for robbery ; and, 
summoning the English Consul to his Divan, denounced 
the frigates as " Corsairs, pirates, disturbers of the Grand 
Signor's ports, and hinderers of his profits and the trade 
of the place." The Consul answered that they were 
nothing of the sort : " They were ships of State and 
1 Thevenot, i. 253. 



140 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

honour, belonging to the Parliament of the Common- 
wealth of England. That being such, and we the Grand 
Signor's friends and in league with him, I could not nor 
must endure to hear our ships of State to lie under such 
reproachful terms. That the French themselves were 
truly corsairs and had by piracy and treachery taken at 
sea more of our merchant ships trading into and from 
Turkey than Marseilles itself was worth, to the ruin of the 
trade of this place and the great disprofit and loss of the 
Grand Signor in his customs ; which trade the Parliament 
of England, taking care to remain, has in the midst of 
their great occasions spared and appointed some of their 
own ships of State to be convoy to their merchantmen." 
Ipser, unable to prove the contrary, produced some 
allegations of misconduct against the English crews at 
Scanderoon, vouched for by the local Cadi ; and upon 
those grounds he condemned the frigates as pirates, 
which, translated into Turkish terms, meant that they 
should pay him fifteen thousand dollars for " anchorage." 
This fine, as it could not be exacted from the alleged 
culprits themselves, had to be paid by the English Consul 
and merchants, who were detained as prisoners in his 
Seraglio. Fortunately some of the leading Moslems 
at Aleppo, realizing the damage to their own interests that 
would result from a ruin of the English trade, " laboured 
as far as they durst to take off the tyrant's edge." The 
Pasha released the prisoners and condescended to reduce 
the avania of 15,000 dollars to 13,000. An insolent Aga 
with a troop of soldiers was at once sent to the Consulate 
to collect the sum. The Consul paid as much of it as he 
could ; but the Aga presently returned with his myrmidons 
for the balance. The Consul, who was at dinner with 
some of the English merchants, refused to submit to any 
further fleecing. Thereupon the Aga seized one of the 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 141 

Consul's guests and tried to carry him away from his table : 
" which violence and affront not enduring to see com- 
mitted before my eyes, in my own house, I closed with 
the Aga myself to relieve the merchant. In which 
struggle he both tore my vest and suddenly drawing his 
handgarr offered to strike it violently into my bowels, 
but was prevented by some about me that were more 
vigilant for my safety than in my heat I could be of my- 
self." Nothing could, however, prevent the Aga from 
carrying the Consul and his guests off to his house and 
locking them up. The whole city of Aleppo cried out 
upon this outrage, and the Pasha, yielding to Moslem 
public opinion, ordered the Aga to set his captives free ; 
but would on no account remit the balance, which had 
to be paid to the utmost asper. 

However, the poor Consul had one satisfaction : the 
French were no gainers by the loss they brought upon 
the English ; " For," he writes, " the Bassa, having 
eaten in this business 13,000 dollars from us, now falls 
upon them and demands 20,000 dollars of them for a 
service done them against us, which he has been put 
upon by some that wish us well here, and will sure exact 
the greatest part of it, which will go near both to ruin 
them and their trade here and make them know the price 
of their malice and want of judgment in this late action ; 
the Turk desiring no better harvest than to see two 
Christian Ambassadors or Consuls contend before his 
tribunal." 1 

Our second instance belongs to some hundred years 
later. During the European War which began in 1741, 
and ended in 1748 our Ambassador at Constantinople was 
faced by a similar situation. The English fleet was 

1 Consul Riley to the Council of State, Aleppo, June 19, 1652. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 17. 



142 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

making free of the Mediterranean and the ships sailing 
thereon. Turkish victims of our gallant captains' passion 
for prizes came from Syria and Egypt to lay their griev- 
ances before the Porte, and the Porte sent them on to 
the Ambassador for compensation. He put them off as 
long as he could ; but in the end he had to pay up "to 
prevent fatal consequences which might ensue." 

"It is extremely hard," he moralizes, " that the 
rapaciousness of a few should make the Publick 
suffer." 1 

These circumstances, doubtless, in a measure explain, 
and even excuse, the injustices, oppressions, and exac- 
tions, of which English merchants and diplomatists in 
Turkey complained month after month, year after year, 
and century after century. For even when there was 
no provocation, the Turk could not shake off the habit 
of plunder which he had learnt to justify to himself on the 
plea of retaliation. Circumstances may change ; customs 
remain. Nowhere is this more true than in a country 
where tradition ruled supreme, and a mere accident 
often was enough to establish a precedent. However, 
be the value of this psychological speculation such as it 
may, the historical fact is that all the Turkish grievances 
against the Englishman pale into utter insignificance 
beside the English grievances against the Turk. His 
everyday essays in iniquity present a consistent grandeur 
of design and breadth of style with which only the rarest 
of Frank masterpieces could vie. 



As has been shown, the course of Anglo-Turkish did not 

1 Sir James Porter to the Consul and Factory of Aleppo, 
March 23 ; Aug io, 1747. S.P. Foreign, Supplementary, No. 
67. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 143 

run much smoother than that of Franco-Turkish amity. 
Some of our ambassadors were apt to claim, for the 
benefit of people at home, that they stood on a level 
of exceptional distinction and wielded an exceptional 
degree of influence at the Porte. The claim — like the 
similar boast made by their French colleagues — was 
based on no more solid foundation than the wish which 
is father to the thought ; and it could be disproved, 
only too easily, out of the claimants' own mouths. Our 
true place in Turkey during the whole of the seventeenth 
century is sufficiently illustrated by the transactions 
related in the preceding pages. A continuation of the 
record through the eighteenth century would be essentially 
a repetition : time did not mend the situation ; it only 
robbed it of the peculiar sting that belongs to an un- 
familiar evil. Sir James Porter, who left Turkey in 
1762, six years afterwards relieved his feelings by pub- 
lishing to the whole world the shameful position which 
he, in common with all his colleagues, occupied on the 
Bosphorus. His book proves much better than any 
modern account could do how small was English 
prestige at Stambul as late as the third quarter of the 
eighteenth century. 

If the representatives of England were spared some of 
the worst humiliations that befell their French rivals, 
the true cause of their comparative immunity is to be 
found in their own tact, assisted by a thick skin. Sir 
Paul Ricaut had laid down the rule for avoiding personal 
violence : " wisdom to dissemble with honour, and 
discreet patience, seemingly to take no notice of affronts." 
Fortunately for themselves, most English diplomatists 
were fitted by temperament and training to observe 
this salutary rule. Having a clear perception of their 
interest, they pursued it with a tenacity and want of 



144 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

sensitiveness such as became the representatives of a 
nation of shopkeepers. 

Thanks, then, to their habitual exercise of self-restraint, 
our countrymen in the East managed not only to escape 
the stripes that often visited the thinner skin of the 
French, and to get through many a storm relatively 
unscathed, but even to obtain now and then favours 
denied to their competitors. Other things helped them. 
The English in the Levant, like the Phoenicians of old, 
were devoted entirely and exclusively to trade, nourishing 
no territorial ambitions ; while the French, like the 
ancient Greeks, regarded trade as a means to ultimate 
conquest. Whereas to the French commercial penetra- 
tion was a prelude to political domination, we were content 
to look upon commerce as an end in itself. From time 
to time politicians and publicists arose in England to 
advocate a less utilitarian and more adventurous policy 
towards the Grand Signor ; but they failed to persuade 
the English Government to risk the enormous loss which 
even a few years' interruption of the Turkish trade 
would have involved. Financial welfare was prized more 
highly by our rulers than the glories of warfare ; and the 
majority of Englishmen, far from envying the Turk's 
continental neighbours their ceaseless quarrels with the 
enemy of the Cross, congratulated themselves on their 
own geographical situation, thanks to which they " never 
have felt any smart of the rod of this great oppressor of 
Christianity, and yet have tasted of the good and benefit 
which hath proceeded from a free and open trade and 
amicable correspondence and friendship with this people." 
These conditions, initiated by the sagacity of Queen 
Elizabeth, " preserved by the prudence and admirable 
discretion of a series of worthy ambassadors, and daily 
improved . . by the excellent conduct and discretion 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 145 

of the Right Worshipful Company of the Levant Mer- 
chants," 1 created an Anglo-Turkish understanding which 
endured down to our own day. 

The development of this understanding is mirrored 
in the literature no less than in the history of the last 
three centuries. 

Not the least charm of that literature lies in its naively 
subjective character. Most of the books that profess 
to reveal the state of Turkey rather reveal the state of 
mind of those who wrote them. It is natural that it 
should be so. The only judgment that has any value 
at all is the judgment which is based on thorough know- 
ledge and is biassed by no sentiment. In other words, 
the judge, to deserve his name, must be both well-in- 
formed and impartial. Now, very few of the Englishmen 
who either wrote about Turkey themselves or inspired 
the writings of others, possessed these indispensable 
qualifications. The travellers who landed in the country 
one day and left it the next could not be well-informed. 
The merchants who resided in the country for years 
could not be impartial. Their impressions of Turkish 
character were chiefly derived from the worst sections of 
the Turkish people : from the hooligans who insulted 
them and the officials who fleeced them. Close inter- 
course with Turks of other classes would doubtless have 
corrected many errors of opinion ; but such intercourse, 
owing to linguistic, religious, and social barriers, was 
extremely rare. The same remark applies, in an even 
higher degree, to our ambassadors. The only Turks 
they ever came into contact with were the Pashas of the 
Porte : men who were tyrants, liars, and brigands by 
profession ; and their relations with these were, for the 

1 With these eminently sensible reflections Sir Paul Ricaut 
concludes his quaint survey of the Ottoman Empire. 



146 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

most part, such as to arouse their resentment and to 
mislead their judgment about the whole Turkish nation. 
Add, as another source of prejudice, the ignorance which 
made Europeans use the term " Turk " as a synonym 
with " Moslem," and, quite innocently, saddle the Osmanli 
with the sins of the Syrian, the Kurd, the Arab, and the 
Albanian — not to mention the Christian renegade who 
out-Heroded Herod in bigotry — and you have an ample 
explanation of the volume of vituperation which finds 
vent in the innumerable English tomes about Turkey 
and the Turks. Thus too often we see the whole race 
of Osman summarily dismissed as " a barbarous people," 
" a perfidious people," " a tyrannical people," " a gross 
and dull people," " a blockish people " ; or summarily 
damned as a set of fierce fanatics, devoid of the least 
regard for any law save the Law of the Prophet, animated 
by no feeling save an unquenchable hatred of the Christian 
and an unappeasable hunger for the contents of his 
pocket. We are gravely assured that " Friendship and 
generosity are sentiments alien to their natures," that 
" they know hardly any pleasure but that of the sixth 
sense," that " lust, arrogance, covetousness, and the most 
exquisite hypocrisy complete their character." 

One extreme begets another. Side by side with these 
dithyrambs of indiscriminate abuse, we have paeans of 
equally indiscriminate praise. From the very beginning 
we come across traces of this conflict between opposite 
prejudices : the arrant Turk-lover pitted against the 
downright Turk-hater x — a conflict which was to reach 

1 One instance will suffice. Henry Maundrell, a Fellow of 
Exeter, in a letter to another Fellow of the same College, dated 
Aleppo, March io, i698( = q), writes : " You desired an account 
of the Turks. ... It would fill a volume to write my whole 
thoughts about them. I shall only tell you at present that I 
think they are very far from agreeing with that character which is 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 147 

its climax of absurdity in the nineteenth century. Fortu- 
nately there always were a few Englishmen who did not 
permit themselves to be blinded by passion, or carried 
away by a passion for paradox ; who could distinguish 
between the Turk who oppressed the Christian and the 
Turk who, to some extent, shared the Christian's op- 
pression ; observers who had the capacity to see the 
truth and the candour to tell it. At their hands the 
ordinary, non-official— especially the provincial— Osmanli 
ceases to be either a monster or a paragon : he becomes a 
human being, in some respects worse, in others better 
than ourselves. To his temperance and frugality they 
pay that tribute of admiration, mingled with astonish- 
ment, which is due from the man of three square meals a 
day to the man of one ; from the habitual tippler to the 
total abstainer. His probity in business transactions, 
his courtesy in social relations, his charity— which did 
not always end at home ; his tenderness to dumb crea- 
tures ; his cleanliness ; his respect for old people and for 
women; his love of children and flowers; his simple, 
unaffected, and disinterested hospitality; his religious 
tolerance— all meet with various degrees of recognition. 
An English Consul who, at the most critical moment in 
his life, had a taste of the Venetian's cruelty and duplicity, 
contrasts it with his experience of the opposite qualities 
among the Turks in these words : " honester men, and 
of better conscience ; for, considering their education and 
religion, they show more humanity than he who is pre- 

given of them in Christendom . . ." — he breaks into a denuncia- 
tion as uncritical as " the extravagant commendations " which he 
criticizes and far more offensive. It does not for a moment occur 
to him that, while speaking of the Turks, he really means Moslem 
Syrians : the only Turks at Aleppo, Jerusalem, and the other 
towns of the East to which his experience was limited, were 
Government officials. A Journey, etc., pp. 504-5. 



148 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tended friend to our State." 1 But, perhaps, the most 
judicious and impartial estimate of the Turk in the 
whole of English literature is one penned by a man who, 
in view of his age and occupation, might have been ex- 
pected to revel in hasty and irresponsible generalizations : 
a poet just out of his teens. 2 

As to what the average Turk thought of the average 
Englishman in those days, we have no direct documentary 
evidence. The Turks did not write books ; nor were 
they given to expressing their feelings freely in speech. 
They were, as one of our ambassadors paints them, not 
without a tinge of malice, " an uncommunicative people, 
concealed and wrapped up in the veil of their own ob- 
scurity." 8 We only have the Englishman's word for it 
that the Turk esteemed him more, or, to put it with 
greater exactitude, disesteemed him less, than any other 
European. But the statement is highly probable on a 
priori grounds. The two nations, widely as they were 
severed by culture, were drawn together by many touches 
of nature : by their common qualities, and even more 
powerfully, it must be confessed, by their common limita- 
tions. They both are, on the whole, truthful above the 
common run of mankind ; both have an abnormal par- 
tiality for soap and water ; both are kinder to animals 
than any other race that is not impelled to such kindness 
by religious doctrine — as the transmigration of souls 
which influences the Buddhist, or the divinity of the cow 
which, in a measure, serves to mitigate the Hindu's 
cruelty towards his cattle. Then they both are inordi- 



1 Thomas Potton to Sir Peter Wyche, Oct. 17, 1629. 

8 See Byron's " Additional Note on the Turks," appended to 
Canto II of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Paris ed. 1842), pp. 
103-4. It was written in 181 1. 

3 Porter, Intv. xiv. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 149 

nately attached to tradition, distrustful of new experi- 
ments, prone to look upon mental alertness as inconsistent 
with moral uprightness : to think that the more stupid 
a man is the more honest he must be. Slow to apprehend 
and secretive, they do not annoy each other with excess 
of words. Both the Englishman and the Turk love to 
sulk in company, and in both sulkiness proceeds from the 
same cause : they hold their tongues not so much because 
they disdain to talk, as because they have nothing to 
say. 

Indeed, if it were not for a certain physical restlessness 
and a certain moral cussedness (which we call indepen- 
dence) the typical Englishman would, with a little 
training, make an excellent Turk. 

So pronounced and so palpable was this similarity of 
disposition that it gave rise among the Turks to a strange 
theory on the origin of the English. There is in Asia 
Minor, somewhere between Anatolia and Caramania, a 
district called Caz Dangli, and this the Turks, in the 
eighteenth Century, believed was the country from which 
the Angli sprang. " On this account, they never fail to 
claim kindred with the English wherever they meet, 
especially if they stand in need of their assistance." The 
traveller who tells this story illustrates it from personal 
experience. While crossing the desert from the Nile to 
the Red Sea, he was joined by a party of Asiatic Turks 
on their way to Mecca. They informed him that, not 
knowing the language and customs of Egypt, they had 
been but indifferently treated by their own vassals and 
co-religionists since they landed at Alexandria ; so, on 
hearing that an Englishman was in the caravan, they 
came straight into his tent, without ceremony, regarding 
him as a compatriot, and offered that they should stand 
gide by side against the rapacious Arabs. The English- 



150 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

man agreed, and later on he had occasion to test the 
practical value of the alliance. 1 

This incident happened in 1769 ; and there is other 
evidence to show that by that time, at all events, Anglo- 
Turkish sympathy had ripened into something like 
friendship. In 1777 an English visitor noted a partiality 
for his nation even among the rascals of Tunis : " They 
are indeed civil enough to us, and generally are so to the 
English, for whom they profess a great friendship, and I 
believe do esteem more than any Christian Power what- 
ever. Not but they would cheat and rob you, but then 
I mean they would not spit at you or perhaps murder 
you as you walk along, which they will do in several other 
parts, and this they look upon as the highest proof of their 
moderation and urbanity." 2 At a later date, we hear 
of a Turk saying to an Englishman : " L'Anglisi star 
bono Christiano — the English are the best of Christians." 3 
I do not wish to overrate the significance of such utter- 
ances, and I readily echo the chronicler's comment on the 
last statement : " it is to be remarked, that he said this 
to an Englishman." But neither do I think it wise to 
overlook them. 

It was at this epoch that the friendship founded on 
community of interests, and cemented by affinity of 
temperaments, received its coping-stone. 

Until now the role which England had played on the 
stage of Turkey's international relations had been the 
humble role of an honest broker. It was the practice of 

1 James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile 
(3rd. ed., 1813), ii. 77-78. 

2 Lord Robert Manners to Thomas Thornton, " The Enter prize, 
off Cape Finistere, June 3, 1777." Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. XIV. 
Pt. i. 8. 

3 "Constantinople, Dec., 1788," in A Picturesque Tour. By an 
Italian Gentleman (1793), 145, 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 151 

our ambassadors, whenever a suitable opportunity pre- 
sented itself, to offer to the Porte their services as media- 
tors of peace, chiefly in order, by laying the Sultan under 
an obligation, to procure for the Levant Company some 
mercantile concession. As yet, to side with Turkey 
actively in her quarrels was no part of English policy : the 
most that English statesmen could bring themselves to 
do was to abstain from siding with her enemies. So late 
as 1768, George III endeavoured to impress upon the 
Porte his " delicacy " towards it, " in having hitherto 
rejected the Russian Alliance, purely upon account of 
what is called the Turkish Clause " — a clause by which, 
if Catherine's diplomacy had succeeded, a Russo-Turkish 
war was to constitute a casus foederis. But at the same 
time his representative at Constantinople was instructed 
to " assure the Russian Resident of his Majesty's favour- 
able sentiments towards the Empress." In trying to 
effect a reconciliation between Petersburg and Stambul 
the London Cabinet was prompted by the desire to curry 
favour with both Courts at once ; and the English am- 
bassador was warned " to hold out nothing more than 
good offices both to Russia and the Porte, without raising 
the hopes of the first or the fears of the latter." 1 

In the next twenty years, however, the English attitude 
assumed a more positive character, and England's active 
participation in the Eastern Question began. In 1790, 
Pitt, anxious for the balance of power generally and of the 
balance of Anglo-Russian forces in the East more es- 
pecially, made the first effort to rescue the Sultan from 
the enemy who, after destroying the integrity of his 
Empire, threatened its existence. It is true that the 
Minister's wish to enforce his policy by war was frustrated 

1 Lord Weymouth to John Murray, Nov. 1, 1768. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 44. 



152 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

by public opinion. English merchants refused to curb 
Catherine's ambition at the cost of their Baltic trade ; 
and English Liberals refused to let English blood be 
shed in defence of a State which, at best, was a disgrace 
to civilized Europe. None the less, Pitt's friendly in- 
tentions were highly appreciated at Constantinople ; and 
Turkish appreciation reached the point of enthusiasm a 
few years later, when English ships and English armies 
co-operated with the Sultan's troops to win back Syria 
and^Egypt to his rule (1801). Nelson's victory at Aboukir 
was acclaimed in Stambul even more warmly than it was 
in London, and the Sultan overwhelmed the victor with 
honours and presents, while Abercromby was addressed 
by the affectionate term Baba, or " Father." 

Shortly afterwards the Sultan's subservience to Napo- 
leon against whom England had defended him induced 
her to reverse her attitude, and an English admiral 
appeared before Constantinople — not as a friend (1807). 
Also the anti-Turkish part which the British Government 
was compelled, much against its inclinations, to play in 
the Greek War of Independence naturally tried the Turk's 
faith in England sorely : it was hard to reconcile the 
English ambassador's professions on the Bosphorus with 
the action of the English admiral at Navarino (1827). 
For all that, the whole trend of this country's policy from 
the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards was 
consistently pro-Turkish. The maintenance of the Otto- 
man Empire came to be regarded as a dogma equivalent 
to the maintenance of British interests in the East. 
Those interests were menaced by the same danger as 
Turkey : every stride Russia took at Turkey's expense 
brought her nearer to the British sphere — Eastern 
Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, India. The Sultan's 
enemies were our enemies, and his friends our friends. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 153 

When, in 1849, after the suppression of the Hungarian 
rebellion, Austria and Russia demanded from the Porte 
the surrender of the rebels who had taken refuge in its 
territory, Lord Palmerston sent the British fleet to the 
Dardanelles to support the Sultan : an act which earned 
us the gratitude of all Turks. 

There continued to be, as there had always been, an 
anti-Turkish body of opinion in England : people mis- 
guided enough to set ideal aims above material gains — to 
think of the claims of liberty, of the rights of small nation- 
alities to independent existence, of human progress and 
civilization, more than they thought of British interests. 
But in England, as everywhere, the idealists are few and 
the men who proudly call themselves " practical " many. 
Consequently, with whatever opposition from certain 
sections of public opinion, the British Government adhered 
to the path which Pitt had marked out for it, with a steady 
and undeviating step. 

The whole difference between the Conservatives and 
Liberals as regarded the Ottoman Empire was one of 
degree. So great a Liberal as the Duke of Argyll was a 
member of the Ministry responsible for the Crimean 
War ; and he accurately defined the respective views of 
the two parties in later years, when he said that the 
Conservative policy was to support Turkey at whatever 
cost to the subject populations, as a garrison against the 
military encroachments of Russia ; the Liberal policy 
had always been that the partition of Turkey and the 
protection of Eastern Christians were matters for com- 
bined Europe to settle — not for Russia alone. 1 But, 
since Europe could not combine ? 

1 Speech at Leeds, Nov. 14, 1879. The moral justification for 
the Liberal attitude is to be found in one of Burke's letters. 
Writing in 1772, he said that he did not wish well to Turkey — for 



154 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Of course, even the most cynical of British statesmen 
did not fail to recognize that the maintenance of the 
Ottoman Empire could not be effected by external support 
alone. No building can stand on other than its own 
foundations. Besides, an internal purification and paci- 
fication of Turkey, they realized, would add to their 
materialistic programme a moral sanction not wholly 
without its value even in politics. Therefore, while 
they strenuously buttressed up the crazy old fabric from 
without, they did all that was humanly possible to restore 
it from within. In Stratford Canning (afterwards Lord 
Stratford de Redcliffe) — a diplomatist who knew how to 
combine strength with subtlety and to impose his will 
upon others — the Turks found a friend, counsellor, and 
schoolmaster ever ready to chastise them for their good. 
The reforming Sultan Abdul Mejid and his well-meaning 
Grand Vizier Reshid Pasha allowed themselves to be 
driven by him where they would not have been led by 
others : he was their Elchi — The Ambassador. So great 
was the Englishman's influence in Stambul and so un- 
remittingly did he exert it to shield Turkey from Russian 
hostility and intrigue, that the Tsar regarded him rather 
than the Sultan as his adversary. Whatever the Sultan 
did, whatever he said, was received at Petersburg as an 
expression of English thought translated into Turkish. 
The Crimean War was very largely the work of this im- 
petuous and imperious, yet persuasive, diplomatist : the 
last of a vanishing type. 1 

any people but the Turks, situated as they were, would have been 
cultivated in three hundred years ; yet they grew more gross in 
the very nativej soil? of civility and refinement. But he did not 
expect to'live to see the Turkish barbarism civilized by the Russian. 
Corr. i. 402, cited in John Morley's Life of W. E. Gladstone (1903), 
i. 479. n. 

1 See his own writings on the Eastern Question ; his life by 
Stanley Lane Poole ; and A. W Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, i. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 155 

The tradition thus established at Constantinople was 
faithfully carried on by the great Elchi's successors. 
Turkey's regeneration was their mission. Midhat Pasha 
had in Sir Henry Elliot a mentor as devoted as Reshid 
Pasha had had in Stratford de Redcliffe, and Russia 
quite as zealous an opponent. 1 Sir Henry Layard, with 
his usual love for ruins, wasted on the restoration of 
Turkey as much of his time as he could spare from his 
excavations in Nineveh. 2 At the same time, one of the 
most resourceful and skilful of English sailors, Hobart, 
was labouring to resuscitate the Ottoman navy. 

This unwearied and seemingly disinterested display 
of English goodwill during the saddest period in their 
national history produced a profound effect upon the 
Turks. The events which shook their faith in themselves 
served to strengthen their faith in us : if in the eighteenth 
century they had been inclined to recognize in the English- 
man a cousin, in the nineteenth they discovered in him 
a brother. Of this sentiment I could give no better idea 
than by quoting what a Turkish officer told me some 
years ago. His father, when he was a boy, used to say 
to him : " Know, my son, that we have two kings : one 
is the Padishah in Stambul; the other lives in a far- 
away island called England." 



1 Sir Henry Elliot has left a record of his activities at Constan- 
tinople, which, however, has not yet been made public. As much 
as he thought fit for publication is embodied in his article on " The 
death of Abdul Aziz and of Turkish Reform," Nineteenth Century, 
Feb. 1888. For the Russian view of those events see Nelidow's 
" Souvenirs " in the Revue des Deux Mondes, May 15, July 15, 
1915- 

2 See his Autobiography and Letters. As a diplomatist this 
gentleman was little better than a fussy amateur. After reading 
his letters, one understands the feeling which prompted Palmer- 
ston to say that he could not forgive Nineveh for discovering 
Layard. 



156 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

But even the best of friends must part. 

The last occasion on which England demonstrated her 
anxiety for the preservation of the Sick Man was the 
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Disraeli would gladly 
have intervened at the very outset to save the Sultan 
from the dissecting knife of the Tsar. But the atrocities 
perpetrated by the Turks in Bulgaria — reprisals which, 
though provoked by the Russo-Bulgarian agitators them- 
selves and though grossly exaggerated by diplomatic 
mendacity and popular credulity, were yet revolting 
enough to turn the least sensitive stomach — supplied 
Gladstone with a pro-Russian argument which he used 
with all the skill of a practised humanitarian. 1 British 
interests were very well ; but after all there was such a 
thing as a British conscience. Downing Street had to 
yield to Exeter Hall and content itself with sending again 
Hobart to blockade, with the Ottoman fleet, the ports 
of South Russia and the mouths of the Danube : until 
the Petersburg Government made the mistake of claiming 
more than its pound of flesh. 

Russia's inordinate severity brought about in England 
the usual change of feeling, which journalists with unusual 
felicity term the swing of the pendulum. The Sultan 
from a culprit became a victim. Exeter Hall had had 

1 Gladstone in 1856 had upheld the integrity of the Ottoman 
Empire against Russia, but when he was taunted, in 1876, by 
Lord Hartington with inconsistency, he had no difficulty in recon- 
ciling his present with his past attitude. He held now that Tur- 
kish integrity was conditional on Turkish reform. British in- 
terests were falsely understood, if they involved the continued 
ill-government of Christians. When it was said that his own 
Government, in 1871, had solemnly renewed all the stipulations of 
the Treaty of 1856, his reply was that he was not then aware that 
the promised reforms had never been carried out by the Sultan ! 
See Bernard Holland's Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of 
Devonshire, i. 168-170. Obviously there is more than one way of 
tearing up a " scrap of paper." 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 157 

its day ; it was now Downing Street's turn. The British 
fleet went east ; British Indian troops came west ; 
British diplomacy busied itself in Austria, France, Italy, 
Germany. The upshot was the Congress of Berlin which 
tore up the Treaty of San Stefano and reduced the mutila- 
tion which it could not altogether prevent. England got 
for her pains a slice of Turkish territory in the shape of 
the island of Cyprus : a shady transaction which demol- 
ished the myth of English disinterestedness, without 
diminishing the Sultan's trust in English protection. 
One more effort was made to moralize that protection by 
exacting from him a fresh promise of reform. But by 
this time it had become plain to all those who had eyes 
and cared to use them that the Ottoman polity was be- 
yond repair. 1 It had rotted too long — its walls were 
seamed with fissures extending from the roof to the very 
foundations ; foreign assistance might paper over the 
cracks : no earthly power could save the edifice from ulti- 

1 Already in 1866 the British Ambassador at Constantinople 
wrote : " I am not one of those who look upon the Turkish Empire 
as good per se — to be upheld at all hazards — but, in the interest 
of all parties, I should like to let it down gently." — Lord Lyons 
to Lord Stanley, Dec. 19, 1866, in Lord Newton's Life of the 
former, i. 160. Even Sir Henry Layard, by 1878, had ceased to 
believe in the Turk's revivification, only he dreaded the conse- 
quences of a violent dissolution : he would have England " keep 
matters as they were as long as possible ; using at the same time 
her endeavours to improve the government of the country and to 
secure to Christians and Mussulmans alike justice and equal 
rights, thus preparing them for the changes which were sooner 
or later inevitable, but which might have been brought about 
without the frightful bloodshed and misery caused by the Russian 
invasion, and without the risk of plunging Europe into war." 
Layard to White, March 1, 1878, in H. S. Edwards' Sir William 
White ; his Life and Correspondence, 129. Indeed, the only 
statesman who still nursed his faith in the Turks was Lord Strat- 
ford de Redcliffe, too old to abandon habits of thought that had 
been his companions for half a century : see a very interesting 
glimpse of the veteran Elchi in the Hon. Arthur D. Elliot's Life 
of Lord Goschen, i. 198 



158 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

mate collapse. The policy of the maintenance of the 
Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Russia's advance 
had utterly failed. British finance began to shun a 
bankrupt client. British statesmanship began to cast 
about for a new dogma. 

Meanwhile, there were others who gazed upon the 
decrepit fabric with greedy eyes. When a State has 
reached this stage of rottenness, it becomes a matter of 
vital interest to its neighbours that they should all share 
alike in the distribution of its territory. Lord Salisbury, 
alive to realities, did not hesitate, even while signing the 
Treaty which, once more, guaranteed the integrity of the 
Sultan's dominions, to favour French designs on Tunis. 
He told France in as many words that, " if she occupied 
Tunis to-morrow, we should not even remonstrate." 1 
France proceeded at her convenience to help herself. 
The Sultan naturally turned to England, for was it not 
England who had insisted at the Congress of Berlin that 
Tunis should be recognized as a part of Turkey ? The 
British Ambassador at Constantinople, who was entirely 
uninformed on the subject, when the Sultan asked him 
how her Majesty's Ministers regarded that question, 
could only say that he did not know. What Abdul 
Hamid thought of this answer must remain a matter for 
conjecture. The Liberal English Administration which 
had succeeded the Conservatives was, of course, obliged 
to abide by the secret pledge Salisbury had given to 
France. Much as they would have liked to adopt a high 
moral tone on French unscrupulousness, they could not 
do so : " We think," they said, " Cyprus and the lan- 
guage of Lord Salisbury leaves little ground under our 

1 See Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons, May n, July 20, July 24, 
1878, in Lord Newton's Lord Lyons ; A Record of British Diplo- 
macy, ii. 139, 155, 158. 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 159 

feet to take a strong attitude." We were not clean- 
handed. 1 

If the Sultan was mystified by England's conduct over 
the Tunis affair, he was only too well enlightened by her 
attitude in the Turco-Greek dispute over Thessaly and 
Epirus that went on at the same time (1881). Abdul 
Hamid in a rather pathetic interview with the English 
ambassador suggested that Great Britain now had it in 
her power to give Turkey a striking proof of her friendship. 
To this Goschen replied that to accept a solution, in appear- 
ance favourable to Turkey, would be no real kindness, 
if it were to lack the all-important quality of perman- 
ence. " It was a strange and somewhat distressing posi- 
tion," England's representative wrote to his wife, " for 
the ambassador of a friendly Power to urge in personal 
conversation with the Sovereign of a great Empire that 
it was his duty to part with two fair provinces." 2 Abdul 
Hamid, one is hardly surprised to hear, failed to be im- 
pressed by this kind of friendliness. 

But that was not all. After conniving at France's 
occupation of Tunis, England, a few months afterwards, 
proceeded herself to occupy Egypt. The Turks expressed 
their view of that act in suitable terms : " while pretend- 
ing to protect us, you have picked our pocket." 

These, however, were only desultory pilferings, in- 
spired by no definite plan for the future. Our statesmen 
were still groping for a new dogma to take the place of 
the obsolete " Ottoman integrity." Such a dogma they 
found suddenly in 1885, when Bulgaria, whom Russia 
had created and England curtailed seven years before, 
revolted against her creator : declaring that, while glad 
enough to be mothered by Russia, she did not want to 
be smothered by her. 

1 See Arthur D. Elliot's Life of Lord Goschen, i. 236-238. 

2 Ibid. 219. 



i6o TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT, POWERS 

So utterly blind are diplomatists to all but the most 
obvious of the facts they have to deal with — so incapable 
of grasping or even of suspecting the psychological intan- 
gibilties which lie deep at the root of national move- 
ments — that the Bulgarian coup took every Chancellery 
in Europe by surprise : Truly, said the pompous simple- 
tons to whom nations still entrust the shaping of then- 
ends, truly in diplomacy it is always the unexpected 
that happens ! In Downing Street the astonishment 
was mingled with a feeling of great relief. British dip- 
lomacy hastened to reap the field which Russian blood 
had fertilized. With our encouragement Bulgaria could 
be converted from a Russian outpost into a barrier against 
further Russian advance. Acting upon this calculation, 
England supported the Bulgars in their violation of the 
Treaty of Berlin, and henceforth, abandoning the hope- 
less invalid to his fate, addressed herself to the protection 
of the young State which had in it the sap of life. x 

Thus, by the grace of God, the principle of British 
interests was reconciled at last with the principle of the 
small nationalities ; the Liberal party, so far as foreign 
affairs were concerned, identified itself with the Conser- 
vative party ; and while working for her own supremacy, 
England could, with a clear conscience, pose as the cham- 
pion of other people's liberty. 

Abdul Hamid was, of course, perfectly aware of this 
change of front ; and even if he were not, there were 
those in Constantinople who made it their business to 
open his eyes. But ordinary Turks, as far removed from 
the diplomatic laboratories as are the bulk of every other 
people, still continued to look upon England as their 
patron ; the Sultan himself deriving some consolation 

1 For the beginnings of this new policy, see H. S. Edwards's Sir 
William White, ch. xviii ; and Blue Book Turkey, i (1886). 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 161 

from the thought that, while the antagonism between 
England and Russia endured, Turkey was bound by the 
nature of things to gain. The soundness of this view was 
proved in the crisis of 1 894-1 896, when the British Govern- 
ment, despite the indignation which the persecution of 
the Armenians aroused in this country, maintained a 
passive attitude, realizing that any European interven- 
tion on behalf of the Armenians would have given Russia 

an opportunity of stepping into Asia Minor. 
# * * * * 

The Sultan's estimate of the situation was shared by 
his opponents — the Young Turks. Keenly though they 
resented England's encroachment on the Persian Gulf, 1 
they felt that it formed, in a sense, a guarantee of protec- 
tion against Russian encroachment. It was this view that 
impelled the authors of the Turkish Revolution, in 1908, to 
turn to England first of all for sympathy and support in 
their attempt to arrest the decomposition of their Empire 
by its reorganization. The establishment of Constitutional 
Government in Stambul was signalized by a revival of 
pro-English enthusiasm. The British Ambassador, Sir 
Gerard Lowther, was made the recipient of an ovation. 
Both the first two Grand Viziers under the new regime, Said 
Pasha and Kiamil Pasha, were inveterate Anglophiles 
who had in he past found shelter from the wrath of 
Yildiz Kiosk in the precincts of the British Embassy. 
England, the mother of Parliamentary institutions, was 
expected to take this latest essay in Parliamentarism 
under her fostering care. Turkish patriots were doomed 
to a bitter disenchantment. 

From 1903 England's foreign policy had taken a new 

1 I refer to British aggression in the district of Koweyt, whose 
Sheikh was instigated in 1899 to throw off the Sultan's suzerainty 
and to place himself under the wing of Great Britain. 



162 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and momentous step. After Lord Salisbury's retirement 
the diplomacy for which he stood — opposition to France 
and Russia and harmony with Germany — was completely 
reversed. The new German peril had pushed into the 
background the old Russian peril. The Kaiser, in the 
opinion of Salisbury's successors, was a nearer and more 
formidable enemy than the Tsar. The balance of power 
demanded a readjustment of the political weights. Hence 
the Anglo-French entente (1904) which was to pave the 
way for the Anglo-Russian entente (1907). The basis of 
our understanding with Russia in things relating to the 
Near East was no other than this : we would no longer 
obstruct her advance to the Mediterranean. The domin- 
ant position we had acquired in Egypt, our statesmen 
reckoned, rendered the control of the Dardanelles a 
matter of comparative indifference to us. It was not 
long before the Young Turks were made to feel the effects 
of this novel and, for them, sinister orientation of British 
diplomacy. The inauguration of Parliamentary institu- 
tions in Constantinople, it is true, evoked a great deal of 
sympathy in England. But that sympathy was of a 
purely platonic nature. The Foreign Office, while prais- 
ing and petting Young Turkey effusively, declined to give 
any material tokens of friendship, beyond the loan of some 
British naval officers sent on the futile errand to reani- 
mate the Ottoman fleet. The Young Turks needed money 
wherewith to carry out the reorganization of the adminis- 
tration and to strengthen their military defences. Russia 
saw to it that they got no more money in London than 
they did in Paris. Loans were not refused flatly — such 
a course would have been at variance with the devious 
methods in which diplomacy delights ; they were simply 
coupled with conditions of supervision tantamount to 
the interference of a foreign Government in the domestic 



ENGLAND AND THE TURKS 163 

affairs of the Ottoman Empire — the very thing that the 
Young Turks had risked civil war to escape from. By 
putting two and two together, they arrived at the truth : 
if English and French capitalists were forbidden by their 
respective Governments to supply funds on equitable 
terms (the security offered was acknowledged to be first- 
rate), the reason was that those Governments did not 
wish to promote the regeneration and invigoration of 
Turkey ; they wished to promote Russia's designs against 
Turkey. 

It would be unphilosophical and unfair to blame the 
Triple Entente Powers alone for the failure of the Young 
Turk experiment. That failure was primarily due to the 
Young Turks' own fatuity. Had they not exasperated 
the non-Turkish elements by their suicidal Chauvinism, 
there would have been no Balkan Coalition. They had a 
unique opportunity for conciliating those elements, and 
they did everything in their power to alienate them. 1 
But it is none the less true that, had England genuinely 
desired Turkey's regeneration, she could have saved the 
Young Turks from the errors which brought about their 
calamities. They prayed for British guidance, and they 
would have let themselves be guided by us, had we taken 
the trouble to earn their confidence. As it was, they 
complained, with perfect justice, that our conduct belied 
our professions. No matter what the British Govern- 
ment said : it acted, not as the friend of Turkey, but as 
the ally of Turkey's deadly foe. 

Of England's complicity in the robbery of the Ottoman 
province of Tripoli by Italy in 1911 little need be said ; 
as was the case with France's seizure of Tunis thirty years 

1 See Turkey in Transition, by G. F. Abbott (1909) ; " The 
Turkish Empire," in the Quarterly Review, April, 1909 ; " Turkey 
under the Constitution," ibid. Jan., 1912. 



164 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

before, all the Great Powers were equally implicated. 
But we must dwell on England's part in that other con- 
spiracy — the first Balkan War — which very nearly put 
an end to Turkey in Europe. On September 20, 1912, 
M. Sazonoff, the Russian Foreign Minister, came to Eng- 
land. He passed a whole week at Balmoral conferring 
with Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Bonar Law. He left this 
country on the 28th of the month ; and on the 30th the 
Balkan States mobilized. The inference from this se- 
quence of events was unavoidable. The Turks again 
put two and two together, and again they concluded that 
he British Government was behaving in strict conform- 
ity with the cardinal article of its new creed. All that 
followed corroborated this deduction. At the beginning 
of the war, the British Government, anticipating the 
possibility of a Turkish victory, associated itself in the 
solemn declaration that "in no circumstances would the 
Great Powers agree to any change of the status quo in 
South-East Europe." x When the war ended in a Turkish 
rout, ^it discreetly forgot that declaration and did its 
best to bring about fa peace (Treaty of London) which 
secured to the Balkan States all their territorial con- 
quests. 

We then consoled the Turks with the reflection that 
their losses were gains in disguise — endeavoured to make 
them drop the Adrianople bit which the rupture between 
their Balkan enemies enabled them to recover — and 
kindly advised them, now that they were relieved of their 
troublesome possessions in Europe, to devote their whole 
attention to consolidating their rule in Asia. The Turks 
took us at our word. Early in 191 3 the Ottoman Govern- 
ment begged the British for money and men to carry out 

1 See Statement by Lord Crew in the House of Lords, Oct. 8, 
1912. 



JENGLAND AND THE TURKS 165 

the reform of the Asiatic provinces, offering to invest the 
English officials with full executive powers : it practically 
invited England to take Asia Minor under her tutelage. 
The invitation was peculiarly appropriate, because the 
British Government and the British Press had never 
ceased, since 1878, to remind the Turks of the obligations 
they had contracted by Art. 61 of the Treaty of Berlin 
and to warn them of the dangers they ran by not intro- 
ducing the reforms promised. Nevertheless, the Foreign 
Office declined the invitation. Sir Edward Grey gave 
an official explanation of his refusal in the following 
terms — 

" Our policy towards Turkey ... of consolidating 
and securing Turkish authority and Turkish integrity in 
her dominions in Asiatic Turkey — a policy which depends 
upon reforms in Asiatic Turkey, which depend on sound 
finance . . . that policy which we wish to pursue is one 
which for its success depends on the consent and good- 
will of the other European Powers. It is idle to suppose 
that we alone by lending British officers to Turkey or 
giving assistance of that kind can make a success of that 
policy. Asiatic Turkey interests so many of the Powers 
and interests them so importantly that whatever is to 
be done there must be done with the consent of all. We 
have expressed our opinion with regard to the assistance 
that should be given to Turkey in the form of sound 
finance by being constantly of opinion that Turkey should 
not have placed upon her as a consequence of this war 
an indemnity which would cripple her finances and make 
the re-establishment of her authority difficult or im- 
possible. ... That, we believe, is the true policy and 
true interest of Turkey, but it needs the goodwill of all 
the Powers." x 

1 Statement in the House of Commons, Aug. 12, 1913. 



166 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Leader of the Opposition, as was to be expected, 
cordially agreed with all the Foreign Secretary said. 

By struggling through the labyrinthic involutions of 
this remarkable specimen of English prose, the Turks 
gathered two things : one was that the British Govern- 
ment considered that it had rendered them all the finan- 
cial assistance they needed by saving them from the 
burden of a crushing indemnity ; the other was that it 
was prevented from rendering them any administrative 
assistance by its regard for the susceptibilities of other 
Powers. Who were those jealous Powers ? Their Eng- 
lish friends whispered " Germany ! " But the Turks 
knew that Germany had for ten years been inviting Eng- 
land to share with her the economic development of 
Asia Minor. They also knew that the Power which would 
have really taken umbrage at any sincere attempt to 
strengthen their Asiatic position was Russia. Their con- 
clusion was that England refused to interest herself in 
Turkish reforms because Russia did not wish to have 
Turkey reformed. Her desire was to keep Asia Minor 
in a state of disorder, so that she herself might eventually 
step in " to restore order " — as she did long ago in Poland, 
and lately in Persia. 

This is the gist of England's policy towards her ancient 
ally during the five years (1908-1913) that followed the 
Revolution. Whatever she did, whatever she refrained 
from doing, was inspired by the anxiety to defer to Rus- 
sia's wishes ; and the net result of that policy was such 
as will appear in the sequel. 



Chapter V 

THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 

i. Austria 

NATIONAL feuds are always fiercest between neigh- 
bours ; and the closer the vicinity, the more 
violent the enmity. The history of Franco-Turkish and 
Anglo-Turkish relations until the nineteenth century is, 
as we saw, a chronicle of friendship marred only by occa- 
sional bickerings. The history of Russo-Turkish and 
Austro-Turkish relations during the same period is one 
long monotonous tale of warfare broken only by short 
truces. Austria, being nearer to the Turk, became his 
enemy before Russia. 

From the fourteenth century, when the Osmanli first set 
foot in the Balkan Peninsula, they found Hungary lead- 
ing the Balkan peoples' desperate struggles for freedom. 
After the Turk's firm settlement on the ruins of the By- 
zantine Empire, Hungary continued irreconcilable. In 
1526 Suleiman the Magnificent crushed Hungarian resis- 
tance on the battlefield of Mohacz, and captured Buda- 
Pesth without firing a shot. But the hostility, instead 
of ceasing, spread over a larger area. In 1529 Ferdinand 
of Austria joined in the fray, and Suleiman very nearly 
did to Vienna what he had already done to Buda-Pesth. 
Ferdinand in 1547 was obliged to sign a treaty whereby 
not only he relinquished Hungary and Transylvania to 

167 



168 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

the Sultan, but even agreed to pay him an annual tribute 
of thirty thousand ducats. 

From that hour the two States entered upon a career 
of perpetual friction. When not actually at war, they 
were engaged in preparing for war ; and the mutual ani- 
mosity was kept fresh by constant raids along the whole 
frontier. They did not even pretend to look upon their 
periodical treaties of peace as anything but precarious 
armistices, concluded for limited periods and to be torn 
up the instant either side felt ready to resume the offen- 
sive. 

In 1547 Ferdinand appointed Malvezzy to be his Resi- 
dent at Constantinople ; but while this envoy complained 
to the Porte of Turkish incursions into Hungary, the 
Porte had reason to complain of Austrian intrigues in 
Transylvania. The ambassador emphatically contra- 
dicted these rumours and lulled the Turks' suspicions till 
his master threw off the mask and openly seized Transyl- 
vania. Thereupon Malvezzy was thrown into the Seven 
Towers, and remained there for nearly two years, when 
three new ambassadors arrived to negotiate peace (1553). 
On his return home he succumbed to a disease which he 
had contracted whilst in prison and which, as he was not 
allowed to procure medical assistance, had become mortal. 

The new ambassadors had anything but a pleasant 
time. The Grand Signor at their audience entertained 
them " with a sour and frowning look." His Ministers 
did all they could to browbeat them into compliance 
with their demands : " the mildest punishment they 
denounced against us was that two of us would be cast 
into a nasty dungeon and the third would have his nose 
and ears cut off and so sent back to his master." All the 
time they were kept under close surveillance, allowed 
neither to leave their lodging nor to receive visitors, and 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 169 

every Turk who passed by scowled threateningly at them. 
After three years spent in this agreeable fashion, two of 
the Austrian envoys obtained the Sultan's permission 
to return home, and the third stayed behind to carry 
on the negotiations (1557). This was Ogier Ghiselin de 
Busbecq, whose name, in its latinized form (Augerius 
Gislenius Busbequius) was to become familiar to all 
students of Turkish affairs in after ages as that of the 
author of one of the most instructive books on Turkey 
ever written by a European. It consists of four admir- 
able Letters, covering the whole of his term of service 
( I 554-i562), and presenting a vivid picture of the Otto- 
man Empire at the zenith of its power and insolence. In 
those letters we see rather than read how an Imperial 
ambassador fared at Constantinople. 

At first he was lodged in a stuffy old house with a 
Chaoush mounting guard over his door and locking him 
in every evening. After a while he obtained leave to 
hire a spacious residence with a garden. But as soon as 
the Chaoush realized that, in a building that had several 
doors and windows, he could not keep so strict an eye on 
his charge, he got him transferred to an inn with one 
gate leading into a courtyard. It was a typical Turkish 
khan : the ground floor stables, the upper part a gallery 
lined with cells bare of every comfort, but, as if to make 
up for the absence of furniture, rich in lizards, scorpions, 
and other pests : "so that sometimes, when you would 
fetch your hat in the morning from the place where you 
left it the night before, you find it surrounded with a 
snake, as with terrible hatband." 

In that vile abode Busbequius and his suite dwelt for 
six whole years, subjected to systematic harshness— the 
result not of spontaneous cruelty, but of deep and pre- 
meditated policy. The Ambassador bore it all with the 

M 



170 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

fortitude of a stoic. He seldom stirred abroad, unless he 
had occasion to go to the Porte on business, which hap- 
pened two or three times a year. Perhaps, he thought, if 
he asked for leave to ride about the city with his keeper, 
it might not be denied him. But he refrained partly 
because he thought it good policy to pretend that he did 
not mind his confinement and partly, " to speak truth, 
what comfort can I have to ride up and down among a 
parcel of Turks who will either slight or else jeer and 
reproach me ? " So he kept indoors, and amused him- 
self by reading or by studying the habits of the animals 
which formed his constant company and annoyance. 
When he exhausted the entertainment which domestic 
vermin afforded, he began to import exotic beasts : apes, 
wolves, bears, deer, ferrets, hogs ; also a great variety of 
birds : eagles, jackdaws, cranes, partridges. In the care 
of these pets, the Grand Signor's guests forgot the tedium 
of their exile : " for, seeing we were debarred of human 
society, what better conversation could we have to drive 
grief out of our minds than among wild beasts ? Other- 
wise stones, walls, and solitude had been but lamentable 
divertisements for us." 

One little touch more, and we may close this most 
human of diplomatic records. Now and again, finding 
the keeper in a genial humour, Busbecq obtained from 
him permission to receive visits from the Italian and 
Greek inhabitants of Constantinople. But no private 
correspondence with them was allowed, and the Am- 
bassador, in order to carry on such correspondence, had 
recourse to an ingenious stratagem. He instructed his 
friends in the city every time they wished to send him 
a confidential message to put it in a bag together with a 
little pig. The Chaoush would punch the bag, and on 
hearing the pig grunt would run away, spitting on the 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 171 

ground to escape pollution, and turning to his fellow- 
Moslems he would say : " 'Tis strange to see how these 
Christians do dote on this filthy, impure beast ! " 

Not less pitiable was the lot of Busbecq's successors. 
George Hossutoti and Albert de Wyss were imprisoned 
in 1566. Twenty-five years afterwards Frederic de 
Khrekwitz's apothecary Seidel and his page Mitrowitz 
described the sad destiny of that embassy. This, how- 
ever, marked a turning-point in the relations between 
Vienna and Stambul. 

In 1596 the Austro-Turkish war which had broken out 
three years before was signalized by an Ottoman victory, 
brilliant and barren. Mohammed III was no Suleiman. 
Anxious to exchange as soon as possible the hardships of 
the camp for the pleasures of the harem, he returned to 
Constantinople empty-handed. Hostilities dragged on 
for another decade, when that worthless Sultan's worthy 
successor Ahmed I concluded the peace of Sitvatorok 
(1606). By that treaty the annual tribute was aban- 
doned ; the Emperor's envoys, unlike those of every 
other Christian monarch, were in future to receive as 
well as to give presents ; the allowance made to them by 
the Grand Signor was to be continued during the whole 
of their sojourn, not, as was the case with the other am- 
bassadors, cease on arrival at the capital ; lastly, the 
Turkish envoys to Vienna were to be high officials of the 
Porte and not, like those sent to other Christian Courts, 
domestics of the Seraglio or common Chaoushes. The 
equality of treatment thus secured by the Empire hence- 
forth distinguished its representatives from their col- 
leagues ; for the Turk never departed from a custom once 
established. That treaty is also notable as being the 
first to describe the cessation of hostilities as a " peace." 



172 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Some sixty years afterwards Turkey found herself once 
more involved in war with Austria. The Sultan's army 
was completely routed by inferior Austrian forces (1664). 
This defeat instilled in the Turks a lasting respect for 
their neighbours ; and successive English ambassadors 
commented, with intelligible envy, on the preferential 
treatment accorded to their Imperial colleague. 1 Before 
the end of the seventeenth century an effort was made 
by the ambitious Grand Vizier Kara-Mustafa to reverse 
the terms. 

Such were still the resources of the Ottoman Empire 
that, after a twenty-four years' war with Venice for the 
possession of Crete (1645-1669), followed by a five years' 
war with Poland (1671-1676), Kara-Mustafa was able 
to lead an army of about half a million men against 
Vienna, with the Imperial Resident de Khuniz in his 
train. The Grand Vizier's schemes were as vast as his 
forces. He dreamed of a new Turkish province extend- 
ing from the Danube to the Rhine, with himself as its 
ruler under the nominal suzerainty of the Grand Signor. 
His ability, however, fell far short of his imagination and 
his means. This second siege of the Austrian capital 
(1683) began under the most auspicious omens for the 
invaders. The Emperor Leopold, at the approach of 
the enemy, fled with his Court and did not stop to take 
breath till he reached Bavaria. The Viennese aristo- 
cracy loyally followed upon the Kaiser's panic-winged 
heels ; but, unable to emulate his fleetness, many of 
them fell into the hands of the Turks, who, cruel to the 
brave, had no pity for cowards. The burghers, deserted 
by their noble leaders, proceeded to shame them. Men 
and women went to work to repair and defend the forti- 
fications, and with wonderful spirit endured all the priva- 
l See Ricg,ut, 55 ; Porter, 140. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 173 

tions of an unprepared city, while for miles around them 
they could see the flames and smoke of the devastated 
countryside. In the plain beneath the walls spread 
Kara-Mustafa's immense camp with its silken tents, its 
baths, its gardens — all the pomp and pageantry of a vain- 
glorious Eastern satrap. Suddenly the whole scene 
was transformed. The Poles, under their gallant king 
Sobieski, came to the rescue of the Austrian capital and 
of Christendom. A fierce fight ensued. The religious 
ardour of the Giaours proved superior to the fervour of 
the Moslems. Kara-Mustafa fled, leaving his gorgeous 
camp to the enemy. He reached Belgrade covered with 
dust and dishonour, to lose at the hands of the Sultan's 
executioner the empty head he had saved from Sobieski's 
sword. 

Venice and Russia now joined in the Holy Alliance 
against Turkey, and for fifteen years the war raged as 
only those wars do in which human savagery is inflamed 
by a divine sanction. 

After many vicissitudes, Prince Eugene at the head of 
the Austrian forces dealt the first decisive blow to the 
decadent Osmanli's pride on the banks of the Theiss 
(September 11, 1697). It was a blow which has been well 
described as the " breaking of the Grand Turk's back in 
this world." Since that date, indeed, the Ottoman 
Empire " staggered about, less and less of a terror and 
outrage, more and more of a nuisance." 1 

The effect of that blow was instantaneous. The Turks 
made no secret of the feelings with which the Austrians 
now inspired them : " those iron fellows," they called 
them. 2 Commensurate with her prestige were the tan- 

1 Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, ii. 315. 

2 Nathaniel Harley to Sir Edward Harley, Aleppo, June 8, 
1698. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. XIII. Pt. ii. 27. 



174 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

gible gains which accrued to Austria from Prince Eugene's 
triumph. By the Peace of Carlowitz (January 26, 1699) 
the whole of his trans- Danubian possessions were lost to 
the Sultan. 

After a whne the Turk tried to win back from some 
of his adversaries what he had lost to the others. In 
1715 the Grand Vizier who had humbled Peter the Great 
on the Pruth four years before carried his victorious arms 
against the Venetians in the Morea ; and, thanks to the 
weakness of their resistance rather than to the vigour of 
his assault, he attained his end by a single summer's work. 
As always, the result was taken as a proof of merit, 
without any consideration of the causes to which it was 
due. This " prodigious success," a contemporary tells 
us, " puffed the Turks up to a degree not to be imagined." 1 
So that, although there were many among them who had 
not forgotten the lesson they had received from the 
Austrians, the Grand Vizier met with no opposition when 
he proposed another campaign against the Emperor. 
His failure was as prodigious as his successes elsewhere 
had been : by a single battle he lost both his army and 
his life (1716). Prince Eugene followed up this fresh 
triumph with the capture of Belgrade. The Peace of 
Passarowitz (1718) added more lands and laurels to the 
Austrian crown. Nor did the Emperor omit to stipulate 
that in future his ambassadors should appear at their 
audiences with the Sultan in their native garb and not } 
as heretofore, in a Turkish dress : a concession trifling in 
itself, but not devoid of a certain symbolic value. 

Austria's next venture went far to dim her lustre at 
Stambul. When Russia, in 1736, resolved to avenge 
her sad overthrow on the Pruth, the Emperor seized the 

1 Nathaniel Harley to Auditor Harley, Aleppo, May 15, 171 6, 
op. cit. 256. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 175 

opportunity for increasing his own gains. But Eugene 
was no longer to lead the Imperial armies to victory. 
There were in his place generals of quite another stamp. 
Divided counsels, confused plans, and comprehensive 
mismanagement ruined the Imperial cause. The Turks 
made short work of their disorganized enemy ; and the 
Emperor who, after losing Belgrade and wide territories 
farther east, had begun to dread another siege of Vienna, 
was only too glad to jump at the French offer of media- 
tion. By the Treaty of Belgrade (1739) the Hapsburgs 
had to give up much of what they had got by that of 
Passarowitz. 

What Austria's programme — if she had one— -in the 
next Russo-Turkish rupture (1768-1774) was, it is hard 
to say. The Court of Vienna professed to be anxious 
for peace ; but its professions did not seem to correspond 
with the behaviour of its representative at Constantinople. 
This Minister, in conjunction with the French Ambassa- 
dor, did everything to pour oil on the Turkish flame. 1 
However, as soon as the course of events made it plain 
that the Turks had no chance of success, jealousy of 
Russia decided the Austrian Government to urge a speedy 
cessation of hostilities ; and, on finding its advice dis- 
regarded by the triumphant Catherine, it began to mass 
troops on the Hungarian frontier, ready to side with the 
Sultan against the Tsarina, or to share with her the Sul- 
tan's Empire, as the case might be. But the first parti- 
tion of Poland, while putting off the final partition of 
Turkey, restored the balance of power somewhat to Aus- 
tria's favour, and rendered possible the Kaiser's co-opera- 
tion with the Tsarina in her last attack on Turkey (1788- 
1792). The view then taken by Vienna was that the 

1 John Murray to the Earl of JShelburne, Nov. 16, 1768. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 44. 



176 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Sultan was the common prey, and the two aspirants to 
his inheritance should not quarrel over its division. But 
Austria in that war failed to do her share of the work, 
and missed her share of the spoils, with the result that 
the balance of power in the Balkan Peninsula was dis- 
turbed seriously to her disadvantage. With this dis- 
turbance the identity of the two Empires' interests van- 
ished, and a new chapter was opened in their relations. 
***** 

The rivalry between Vienna and Petersburg remained, 
perforce, in abeyance while the fear of Napoleon hung 
over them both. But it came to the front as soon as 
that fear was removed. 

In the meantime Russia had established her ascend- 
ancy at Stambul, and commanded where Austria was 
only able to counsel. The difference in their positions 
brought about a striking contrast in their respective 
views touching the Ottoman Empire, and this contrast 
became manifest during the Greek War of Independence. 
In that crisis Austria assumed towards the Sultan the 
novel character of a preserver. Her diplomacy was con- 
trolled by Prince Metternich, and it was no part of Met- 
ternich's policy or nature to tolerate anything so revolu- 
tionary as Hellenic liberty to be established, least of all 
under the auspices of Russian liberators. On the other 
hand, it was part of both his policy and his nature to 
prolong the existence of despotism wherever found, to 
champion everywhere hereditary authority and to sup- 
press, as much as in him lay, every popular movement 
of the age. Moreover, the type of the Ottoman Empire, 
composed of many discordant elements, presented so 
close a parallel to the Austrian that Metternich in defend- 
ing the Sultan felt that he defended the principle of 
government on which the throne of the Hapsburgs also 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 177 

rested : the principle that the small were created to obey 
the great, and the great, inasmuch as they owed their 
power to Heaven only, were accountable for their use of 
it to no earthly tribunal. Lastly, the two States had a 
strong bond of sympathy in their common abhorrence 
of change. Of both, though in varying degrees, it might 
be said that, fastened to their ancient moorings, they had 
for ages marked, by their stagnant immobility, the pro- 
gress which the rest of Europe had made. Thus it came 
about that the House of Hapsburg discovered in the 
House of Osman its kin, and the Sultan, having ceased to 
consider the Emperor a formidable enemy, came to 
regard him almost as a friend. 

Before the end of 18127, however, Metternich found 
that he could not bolster up Turkey, save at the cost of 
a war with Russia ; and that price he was not prepared 
to pay. His sole concern henceforth was, not to incur 
risks and waste energy in trying to prevent Russia from 
delivering Christian populations from the Sultan's yoke, 
but to preserve the balance of power by preventing the 
delivered populations from falling under the yoke of the 
Tsar. This diplomacy lost Austria the Turk's confidence, 
without earning for her the confidence of the Christians ; 
but it was the only sound diplomacy possible in the cir- 
cumstances. Metternich adopted it from sheer oppor- 
tunism ; his successors pursued it on principle. They 
came to realize, before 1867, that the negation of national 
rights and the rigid adherence to the creed of conserva- 
tive autocratism, which formed the cardinal features 
of his statesmanship, were dangerous anachronisms. 
Whether they liked it or not, there was such a thing as 
movement in human affairs. This realization found ex- 
pression in a radical change of theHapsburgs' treatment 
of both domestic and foreign questions. If they could 



178 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

not stifle the national spirit within their own dominions, 
much less could they arrest its growth across their fron- 
tiers. Bending to the force of facts, they endeavoured 
to beat Russia at her own game. They also would be- 
come " liberators." 

In 1872 the Archduke Charles Louis, under the pretext 
of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, paid to the Ottoman 
Empire a visit, which was of the nature of a demonstra- 
tion to its Christian inhabitants. At the same time Vienna 
did in Bosnia and Herzegovina what Petersburg was 
doing in Bulgaria, only more subtly. Since discontent 
there was, Austria was determined to profit by it ; and 
in 1875 she stole a march on her competitor by precipi- 
tating the Herzegovinian rising before Bulgaria was 
quite ripe for revolt. Petersburg, however, soon caught 
Vienna up, and Vienna, seeing the hopelessness of these 
tactics, came to terms with her neighbour at Turkey's 
expense. By a secret bargain, the two parties agreed to 
play into each other's hand. Russia would not seek for 
herself any territorial aggrandizement in Europe, and 
would not oppose an eventual occupation of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina by Austria. Austria, on her side, agreed 
not to oppose Russia's efforts on behalf of Bulgaria. By 
this bargain Petersburg secured in advance Vienna's 
malevolent neutrality. 

This cordial understanding was arrived at in the spring 
of 1876— exactly twelve months before the outbreak of 
the Russo-Turkish war. 1 But, as soon as hostilities were 
over, the conflict of interests reasserted itself. In 1879 

1 See Lord Derby to Sir A. Buchanan, May 4,1876 ; Turkey, 3 
(1876), No. 195. There followed the meetings of Prince Gortcha- 
koff and Count Andrassy at Berlin (May 11-15), and of the two 
Emperors at Reichstadt (July 8, 1876). The terms of this pre- 
liminary pact were afterwards embodied in the Buda-Pesth 
Convention of 1877. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 179 

the Austrian occupation of Novi Bazar, though ex- 
pressly sanctioned by the Berlin Treaty to which the 
Russian Government had been a party, gave great um- 
brage at Petersburg, for it cut off the Slavonic State of 
Montenegro from the sister State of Servia, and moreover 
seemed to open the way for an Austrian advance to 
Salonica. Language of such extraordinary violence was 
used by the serni-ofhcial Russian Press against the Haps- 
burgs that they were forced to an alliance with the Power 
which had supplanted them in the hegemony of the 
Germanic race. 

Looking back at the sequence of events which led up 
to their calamities of 1878, the Turks, while cursing Rus- 
sia, were unable to bless Austria. The former Power 
had doubtless been organizing the ball for twenty years, 
and the War of 1877-1878 was, essentially, only a corol- 
lary of the Peace of 1856. But it was Austria and not 
Russia who opened that ball. No matter what the inter- 
nal condition of their Empire might have been, the ques- 
tion of its future lay, so far as the external world was 
concerned, dormant until the Herzegovinian insurrec- 
tion, which was exploited, even if it had not been engi- 
neered, by Vienna. From that moment the Turks were 
able to perceive, amidst all the minor situations which 
arose within the circle of the larger drama, the part of 
the Austrian Government gradually unfolding itself 
along clearly defined lines. The celebrated Andrassy 
Note of December 1875 paved the way for foreign inter- 
vention in their domestic troubles, the natural course of 
events did the rest. 

Nor did Austria's fresh readjustment of her diplomatic 
compass after the Berlin Treaty bring any comfort to 
the Turks. The late Lord Salisbury hailed the anti- 
Russian turn of Austrian policy implied by the Austro- 



180 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

German alliance of 1879 as a guarantee of Ottoman 
territorial integrity in the future : "If you don't trust 
the Turk who is on the rampart of the fortress," he said, 
" at least you cannot refuse the Austrian sentinel who 
is at the door." 1 But the Turks knew the sentinel's 
trustworthiness. They knew that Austria did not oppose 
Russia to save them, but to save her own share in the 
ultimate division of their property. That was the 
motive that induced her in 1880 to decline participation in 
the coercion of the Sultan on behalf of Montenegro, which 
Gladstone urged upon the Concert of Europe. And it was 
the same reason that, fifteen years later, prompted the 
Vienna Cabinet to come forward as Abdul Hamid's pro- 
tector against the wrath which his Armenian orgies had 
aroused in Russia. Austria countenanced those massa- 
cres not from any love for atrocities or for the Turks, 
but simply from fear lest that crime should give her rival 
a pretext for a further essay in vivisection. Actuated 
by this fear, the Austrian Government endeavoured to 
secure England's support by appealing to the clauses of 
the Treaty of Paris which provided for the maintenance 
of the status quo at Constantinople and in the Straits ; 
and on finding no active response in England, it was 
obliged to readjust its compass once more by coming 
to a new compromise with Russia. It was during the 
visit paid by the Emperor Francis Joseph to Petersburg, 
at the end of April, 1897, that the bases were laid for a 
direct Austro-Russian agreement on Balkan affairs which 
lasted through the next ten years. 2 

This agreement was the source of yet another dis- 
appointment for the Turks. Hitherto the Sultan, with 
the wisdom of the weak, and the skill that comes of prac- 

1 Speech at Manchester, October, 1879. 

2 See Sir Horace Rumbold's Final Recollections, 272, 275. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 181 

tice, had managed to play off Vienna against Petersburg, 
and so to maintain his hold on Macedonia. But now 
he had to face a combination fatal to his rule. The 
change became immediately apparent in that harassed 
province. Russian and Austrian Consuls no longer 
pulled in opposite directions. Both encouraged the mal- 
contents, collected complaints without troubling to ascer- 
tain whether they were true or not, and insisted on the 
punishment of the accused officials whether the charges 
brought against them were proved or not. 1 If at the 
same time they discouraged an open insurrection, they 
did so merely because their respective Governments did 
not consider the time had yet arrived. 

During the acutest stage of the Macedonian problem 
the two Governments, as the most intimately interested 
parties, were commissioned by the Concert to co-operate 
in the reform of the Macedonian administration ; and 
they imposed upon Abdul Hamid a recipe which neither 
he intended to make up nor they wished to see made 
up. It was only an attempt to put off the day of final 
reckoning. 

While dividing with Russia the responsibility for Mace- 
donian unrest in Turkish eyes, Austria carried on a 
parallel business in Albania on her own account — the 
Catholic Arnaouts affording her an even better field for 
intrigue than did the Orthodox Bulgars. Her influence 
over the Catholic clans of Northern Albania grew year 
after year. Partly by espousing their side in their sempi- 
ternal feud with the Slavs of Montenegro and Old Servia, 

1 I had many opportunities of studying these tactics on the 
spot in 1903. But I prefer to send the reader for illustrations to 
official documents : See the Blue Book Turkey, 2 (1904). En- 
closure in No. 76 (Vice-Consul Fontana to Consul-General 
Graves, Uskub, Oct. 3, 1903) is a particularly illuminating and 
entertaining example. 



182 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

partly by judiciously bribing their chiefs, Austria suc- 
ceeded in establishing over those primitive and turbu- 
lent highlanders something not far removed from a 
protectorate. 

Such was the tenor of Austrian policy in Turkey from 
1878 till 1908. The outbreak of the Turkish Revolution 
in the latter year necessitated another readjustment of 
the compass to the altered conditions. Co-operation 
with Russia, never very cordial, came to an end ; and 
Austria endeavoured to score off her rival first by for- 
mally incorporating Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Haps- 
burg Empire, which was a blow at Young Turkey as 
well as at Russia ; then by posing as the friend of the 
Young Turks, till the Balkan War of 1912 proved the 
futility of her diplomacy. 

For the rest, Austria's dealings with the Porte during 
the last thirty-five years cannot be dissociated from those 
of her German ally, and can only be treated as part of 
Germany's general programme in the Near East. The 
Dual Monarchy, though by no means lacking an individual 
point of view, ceased to have any strictly independent 
policy from the moment it hitched its decrepit old 
wagon to the Prussian star. 

2. Prussia 
Until the middle of the eighteenth century the Turks 
were hardly aware of the existence of Prussia. If the 
Sultan heard at all of the Prussian king, he heard of him 
as one of the numerous German princes who revolved > 
like so many satellites, round the great Austrian Em- 
peror. Frederick's brilliant victories over Austria (i74 I_ 
1742) brought the Prussian Power for the first time within 
the Ottoman ken as a distinct planet of a very respectable 
magnitude. Frederick lost no time in deepening the im- 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 183 

pression on the Porte in a more direct manner. Knowing 
that Austria would not, if she could help it, leave him in 
the tranquil enjoyment of the provinces he had wrested 
from her, he hastened to make common cause with Aus- 
tria's hereditary enemy. In 1744 a Prussian emissary 
appeared at Constantinople to negotiate a treaty of 
friendship with the Porte ; and twenty years afterwards 
he returned with the title of Minister. 

Frederick's policy towards Turkey was naturally 
guided by his own relations with Turkey's neighbours. 
To preserve the balance of power, constantly disturbed 
by Austria's and Russia's aggrandizement at the Sultan's 
expense, was his main motive; and, perceiving that war 
nowadays meant for the Ottoman Empire loss of terri- 
tory, he did all that in him lay to preserve peace in the 
East. In 1768 his representative at the Porte strove as 
hard as the English Ambassador to save its infatuated 
inmates from themselves ; but, as we have seen, without 
success. After failing to avert the conflagration, Freder- 
ick addressed himself to the task of localizing it. All the 
resources of his diplomacy were employed in urging 
Vienna to keep still and Petersburg to stop before Vienna's 
jealousy led to complications that might drag him also 
into the zone of fire. By 1770 the Turks had learned 
from cruel experience the value of Frederick's counsels 
and implored him to undertake, with Austria, the part 
of mediator between themselves and the terrible Cathe- 
rine. Austria was only too ready to assist Frederick in 
his attempts to arrest the Russian advance south ; but 
Russia would not be arrested in the midst of her victories, 
until events obliged her ; and then the King of Prussia 
did what he could to secure for his friend the Sultan the 
easiest terms possible in the circumstances. 

The service which Prussia rendered to the Sultan in 



184 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

1774 was repeated, and for the same reasons, fifteen 
years later, when she joined England in the effort to 
rescue the Ottoman Empire from the destruction that 
once more menaced it from its two neighbours. These 
services were highly appreciated by the Turks ; but 
other things intervened to check the nascent friendship 
between Stambul and Berlin for a hundred years. 

During the earlier period of the great Napoleonic 
drama Prussia's star appeared to have set for good. In- 
ternal disorganization, social, economic, and military, had 
paralysed and demoralized her thoroughly. By the 
Treaty of Tilsit she lost one half of her territory, saw her 
fortresses occupied by French garrisons, and found her- 
self burdened with an enormous financial load. Incap- 
able of helping herself, she could offer no help to others. 
There followed a period of recovery, which enabled Prus- 
sia to take in the later acts of the drama (1813-1815) a 
prominent part. She emerged from the Napoleonic night- 
mare of terror and confusion " like a strong man after 
sleep, and shaking her invincible locks." But Turkey 
did not benefit by Prussia's second rise to power, for it was 
accompanied by that movement of unrest throughout 
Germany which was for a long time to absorb all the 
energies of the Hohenzollern. And by the time they 
achieved the national unity of the Germans under their 
rule new conditions prevailed in Europe. The new Ger- 
man Empire, threatened by a revengeful France on her 
western frontier, could not afford to estrange the Power 
which commanded her eastern flank ; and, so far as Bis- 
marck was concerned, Russia might have taken Con- 
stantinople and realized her secular dream. The whole 
of the sick Ottoman Empire was not worth to Bismarck 
the sound bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. 1 

1 As in many other matters, so in this, Bismarck could claim to 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 185 

To the Turks this unfriendly attitude was painfully 
obvious. 

During the paroxysm of intrigue that preceded the 
last Russo-Turkish war, the German Ambassador at Con- 
stantinople vied with his French colleague in courting 
General Ignatieff. In the diplomatic conferences that 
took place the Turks had the mortification of seeing the 
representative of Germany seated close to their arch- 
enemy and supporting him by might and main. When 
Midhat Pasha's Constitution was proclaimed, and the 
foreign ambassadors were invited to assist at the solemn 
opening of the National Assembly at the Palace of Dolma 
Baghche, the German Charge d'Affaires followed the 
example of the Russian by ostentatiously abstaining from 
that " comedy." When the rupture occurred the depart- 
ing Russian Charge d'Affaires entrusted Russian inter- 
ests to his German colleague. 1 Needless to say that the 
same Russophilism was displayed by the German Con- 
suls in every part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks 
gave characteristic vent to their annoyance by massacring 
Mr. Henry Abbott, a British subject, who happened to 
be Germany's Consul at Salonica, together with his 
French colleague and brother-in-law. 2 

be the spokesman of his nation : " The Turk has no friends in 
Germany, reports the British Ambassador at Berlin " Even 
Russia might take possession of Constantinople without objection 
on the part of Germany." Lord Odo Russell to Lord Derbv 
Nov i2, 1875, m Lord Newton's life of Lord Lyons, ii 89 

See Nehdow's " Souvenirs d'avant et d'apres la Guerre de 
1877-1878, m the Revue des Deux Mondes, May 15, July 15, 

2 The immediate cause of this double tragedy, which at the 
time produced an immense sensation in the world, setting in 
motion the Chancelleries and the Fleets of all the Powers, was a 
Bulgarian peasant girl of doubtful morals. From motives best 
known to herself, she embraced Islam and came to Salonica to 
make before the Grand Council a formal declaration of faith The 
local Christians snatched her away. The Moslem position rose 



186 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The behaviour of Germany's representatives in Turkey 
was, of course, dictated from Berlin and was in complete 
accord with the Chancellor's own conduct. Bismarck 
throughout that crisis acted as Turkey's enemy in order 
to please Russia. The comparatively mild memorandum 
issued from Vienna (the Andrassy Note) was followed 
(May 15, 1876) by a far severer manifesto from Berlin. 
In that document Bismarck outlined the diplomatic 
strategy soon afterwards employed towards the Sultan, 
which is not to be wondered at, seeing that that document 
was the outcome of Austro-Russo-German collaboration. 
It was Bismarck who had smoothed the way for the 
secret pact between Vienna and Petersburg, who played 
host at the meeting of Count Andrassy and Prince Gort- 
chakoff, and who, after the two senior partners had 
arranged their Eastern plans to their mutual satisfaction, 
invited the other members of the Concert to support 
them. 1 Nor did the Chancellor swerve from his Russo- 
phile attitude through the war of which these diplomatic 
manoeuvres were only the preliminaries. " Bismarck's 
speech appears to me very unsatisfactory. Cold to all 



in arms and demanded the restoration of the convert. The two 
Consuls, to prevent bloodshed, hastened to see the Turkish Gov- 
ernor-General. On their way, they were hustled by an armed and 
excited Moslem crowd into a mosque that stood close by the 
Government House and ruthlessly murdered, in the presence of 
the Governor. The incident was symptomatic of the psycholo- 
gical ferment stirred up by the Russian machinations in the Balkan 
Peninsula, with the sympathetic approval of France and Germany, 
the two unfortunate Consuls being caught in the clash of rival 
fanaticisms. This is the lesson to be drawn from the voluminous 
Correspondence Respecting the Murder of the French and German 
Consuls at Salonica, published by the Foreign Office : Turkey, 4 
(1876). 

1 See the report of these rather singular proceedings from 
Lord Odo Russell, the British Ambassador at Berlin, dated 
May 13, 1876, in Turkey, 3 (1876), No. 248. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 187 

parties except Russia," wrote Goschen in his diary so 
late as February 20, 1878. x 

Fortunately for the Sultan, Bismarck's good offices 
met with very inadequate response at Petersburg. Prince 
Gortchakoff was not well disposed towards him, and 
under GortchakofFs inspiration Russia saw fit to anta- 
gonize Germany — the excuse being that the impartial 
role (the role of an " honest broker ") which Bismarck 
played at the Congress of Berlin was less than what 
Russia had a right to expect from him. It would seem 
that Russia under Gortchakoff could only reason, speak, 
and behave like a vain woman spoilt by too many atten- 
tions. The extraordinary outburst of Russian anger 
which, as we have noted, followed the Austrian occupa- 
tion of Novi Bazar was directed not only against Austria, 
but also against Germany, who was taxed with ungrate- 
fully abandoning her old ally and was threatened with 
a Franco-Russian combination. To this threat Bis- 
marck replied with his usual decision by going to Vienna 
and concluding with Count Andrassy a treaty of mutual 
protection against Russia (October, 1879) : an event 
which was welcomed by the Sultan and by his friends in 
England as erecting a new bulwark against Russian 
aggression in the East. 

Bismarck's change of front was not prompted by any 
concern for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. It is 
true that in 1880 he frustrated Gladstone's efforts to 
coerce Turkey on behalf of Montenegro by declaring, 
with Austria, that in no circumstances would Germany 
fire a shot. But that was merely because an extension 
of Montenegrin power was detrimental to Austrian inter- 

1 See the Life of Lord Goschen, by the Hon. Arthur D. Elliot, i. 

187. 



188 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

ests. He, at the same time, expressed himself quite 
willing to countenance the employment of force against 
Turkey for the extension of Greek power, which should 
have been acceptable to Austria as a counterpoise to the 
aggrandizement of the Slavonic elements through Russia's 
recent action. For similar reasons, he earnestly favoured 
Austria's pacific penetration into Albania. 1 Other indi- 
cations of the true inwardness of the Chancellor's policy 
towards Turkey in those days are not wanting. Six 
years before he had strenuously and successfully opposed 
the endeavours of France to increase her influence at the 
Sultan's expense by the confirmation of her old protector- 
ate over Eastern Catholics and by the establishment of 
a new protectorate over Tunis. 2 By 1878, however, he 
had given up all opposition to French aspirations in Tunis, 3 
and, in 1881, he welcomed their virtual annexation of 
the province, as calculated to alienate Italy from France 
and to draw her towards the Austro-German group, 
which actually happened. Likewise in the following 
year, when the French were exercised over Germany's 
possible action, should they be involved in a campaign 
against Egypt, Bismarck assured them that he would 
continue to observe the same benevolent attitude, even 
if they should get into difficulties on the Nile, " so long 
as they kept away from the Rhine." 4 That Bismarck 
was absolutely sincere in giving these assurances, no one 
can doubt who takes into account his general style of 
diplomacy — often brutal, but never cheaply disingenuous 
— and the particular situation with which he was then 

1 See Elliot's Goschen, i. 212, 215. 

2 See Lord Lyons to Lord Derby, Feb. 24, 1874, in Lord New- 
ton's life of Lord Lyons, ii. 55. 

3 Ibid. 139. 

4 See Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, Nov. 8, 1882, (Eng. tr. 
1906), ii. 291. Cp. 271. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 189 

confronted in Europe : it was plainly to Germany's inter- 
est, by letting France penetrate into Egypt, to earn her 
England's enmity, just as by letting her penetrate into 
Tunis she had succeeded in earning her Italy's enmity. 
If the French did not believe Bismarck, it was entirely 
their own fault. 

From all this it will be seen that a protection of Turkey 
as yet formed no definitely conceived part of German 
policy. Bismarck still hoped to bring about a solid 
understanding with Russia ; and, in fact, immediately 
after Gortchakoff's death (1883) he tried to revive 
the former connexion by the so-called " Reinsurance 
Treaty " of 1884. But Russia's gradual rapprochement 
towards France was inconsistent with any genuine and 
lasting friendship for Germany, and Bismarck had no 
choice but to act accordingly. His tentative experi- 
ments at Constantinople — originally begun with the 
negative object of making France and Russia draw in 
their horns — by degrees assumed a more positive char- 
acter. The establishment of German influence in the 
Ottoman Empire, from being an incident, became an 
essential feature of Prussia's foreign policy. 

It is not the Prussian way to do things by halves. In 
1882 a German military mission under the distinguished 
soldier Colman von der Goltz was sent from Berlin to take 
seriously in hand the reorganization of the Turkish 
army, and simultaneously a scheme for railway construc- 
tion on a large scale in the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan 
was drawn up in Berlin and adopted by the Porte. The 
benefits of this enterprise to Turkey were twofold — 
economic and strategic : the economic benefit was the 
development of agricultural and mineral industry in the 
districts traversed ; the strategic was the Porte's in- 
creased capacity for mobilizing its armies and concen- 



igo TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

trating them rapidly for the defence of the frontiers 
against external danger or for the suppression of internal 
troubles in Arabia and elsewhere. 

The first steps in this Drang nach Osten, as it came to be 
called, were taken by Bismarck, but the statesman who 
had the chief share in giving to it its greatest impetus 
was the Kaiser William II. The young Emperor was 
not satisfied with the pace that had satisfied the aged 
Chancellor. His accession to the throne inaugurated an 
era of vigorous advance in every direction, including the 
department of Welt-Politik represented by the Ottoman 
Empire. His two historic, and slightly histrionic, visits 
to Turkey (1889 and 1898) were intended to tighten the 
bonds of reciprocity between his own country and the 
Sultan's ; and on more than one critical occasion he dis- 
tinguished himself as the one Western potentate upon 
whose support Abdul Hamid could rely to withstand the 
increasing hostility of the civilized world towards his rule 
and his person. International bargains are never, of 
course, one-sided ; and the Kaiser was repaid for his 
valuable aid by the favour, not less valuable, extended 
by the Sultan towards German commercial interests in 
his dominions : the result being the creation of a powerful 
German element in regions which formerly knew the 
German trader and financier by hearsay only. 1 

1 Germany's activity in Asia Minor has given birth to a vast 
amount of literature. To those who desire sound information 
on this very important subject I commend the following works, 
in their chronological order : La Question d' Orient, by Andre 
Cheradame (1903) ; Notes on a Journey Across Asia (Proceedings 
of the Central Asian Society), by the Earl of Ronaldshay (1904) ; 
Report for the year 1905 on the Trade of Constantinople and Dis- 
trict (Diplomatic and Consular Reports, No. 3533), by A. T. 
Waugh (1906) ; The Destruction and the Restoration of Agricul- 
ture in Asia Minor (Lecture delivered before the Geographical 
Section of the British Association), by W. M. Ramsay (1906) ; 
Die Hedjchasbahn. Mit einer Einfiihrung von Frhr. Colman 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 191 

Political advantages went hand in hand with the finan- 
cial, and here also the law of reciprocity held good : if 
the Sultan profited by German assistance in the Armen- 
ian troubles of 1 894-1 896, and the Greek troubles of 1886 
and 1897, the Kaiser profited by Turkish gratitude in 
1898 when he obtained the right to protect his own Catho- 
lic subjects in the East, thus administering a slap at the 
claim of France to be regarded as the sole guardian of all 
Roman Christians in that part of the world. 

The idea embodied in these proceedings was not new. 
Fifty years before Prince Hohenlohe lamented the fact 
that the East knew nothing of Germany and recorded 
his opinion that influence in the Ottoman Empire would 
enhance Germany's power, increase German commerce, 
and perhaps open a door for German colonization. In 
order to establish such influence, he urged that a German 
Catholic Consul should be appointed at Jerusalem and use 
be made of the religious element of the Latin clergy. 1 
But the unification of Germany had to be achieved before 
any serious attention could be paid to her expansion ; 
and the Prince had, in his old age, an opportunity of 
giving effect to the views of his youth. It is not im- 
probable that the vigorous development of German Welt- 
politik after Bismarck's retirement was due as much to 
this Imperial Chancellor as to the Emperor himself. At 
all events, it synchronized with his tenure of office (1894- 
1900). 

Thus from 1882 Germany gradually assumed towards 

von der Goltz, by Auler Pasha (1906) ; Report for the year 1906 on 
the Trade of Baghdad (Diplomatic and Consular Reports, No. 
3 8 73). by Major Ramsay (1907); "The Bagdad Railway," 
by Edwin Pears (in the Contemporary Review, Nov., 1908) ; 
" The Baghdad Railway and the Question of British Co-opera- 
tion," by Arthur von Gwinner (in the Nineteenth Century, June 
1909). 

1 Memoirs, Jan. 16, 1849, i. 51. 



192 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

the Ottoman Empire the role which England had thrown 
up. As long as Abdul Hamid ruled, German influence 
was paramount in Stambul. But with the Revolution a 
new order of ideas came in. The Kaiser's magnificent 
Embassy in their capital stood identified in the eyes of 
the Young Turks with Yildiz Kiosk. The Kaiser was 
regarded by them, not as the friend of Turkey, but as the 
friend of Turkey's tyrant. Abdul Hamid gone, one 
might have expected German influence to go, too. And 
that is what did happen at first. While the British Am- 
bassador was treated as a hero, his German colleague 
was treated as an outcast ; the rather because it was 
the Kaiser's championship that enabled Austria to flout 
Young Turkey by the Bosnian coup of 1908. But these 
trifles did not disconcert the Kaiser's representative. 
He was not a man to be easily daunted. Baron Mar- 
schall von Bieberstein, who had already proved his great 
ability during ten years of brilliant service at Constanti- 
nople, knew that all he had to do was just to wait : Eng- 
land's popularity could not be anything but ephemeral 
in view of England's entente with Russia. He did not 
have to wait long. Very soon the Young Turks realized 
how illusory were the hopes they had built on British 
favour. The tide turned in 1910 when, rebuffed in Lon- 
don and Paris, they went to Berlin and Vienna for loans : 
they had no other course. 1 

The reception with which they met at Berlin formed a 
most exhilarating contrast to their experiences in the 
Western capitals. Although the German Government 
could not raise funds as easily as the British and the 
French, it welcomed the applicants warmly, assisted 
them in the financial operations which ensued, and flat- 

1 See Sir Adam Block's Special Report on the Ottoman Public 
Debt for 1909-1910. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND TURKEY 193 

tered their self-esteem in every way. The Imperial 
Chancellor in explaining the transaction to the Reichstag 
afterwards described how Germany had watched with 
benevolent interest Turkey's efforts in other markets, and 
how, at the proper moment, she came forward to meet 
the pressing needs of a Government which had hitherto 
shown so great devotion in carrying out its task of re- 
organization, thereby serving the cause of peace and at 
the same time Germany's policy of maintaining the status 
quo in the East. " It appeared, therefore, just and 
reasonable, on economic and political grounds, that we 
should stand by our friends the Turkish Government in 
overcoming the difficulties which had arisen out of their 
financial position and provide them with the means to 
carry farther the work of consolidation." x 

These words, accompanied as they were with corre- 
sponding deeds, rejoiced the Turks. The Kaiser was, after 
all, Turkey's true friend. Much of the enthusiasm which 
had been wasted on Sir Gerard Lowther was transferred 
to Baron Marschall von Bieberstein. England's subse- 
quent conduct in the events of 191 2 and 1913 intensified 
the estrangement to the advantage of her rival, who did 
not fail to underline every English sin of omission or com- 
mission. And so German influence which had been 
supreme on the Bosphorus under the old regime became 
supreme under the new, and the German Ambassador 
quietly stepped into the shoes left by his British anta- 
gonist on the threshold of the Sublime Porte. 

The Ottoman field so patiently and skilfully tilled by 
Germany in peace yielded its most valuable fruit in the 
European War. 

1 Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's Speech in the Reichstag, 
Dec. 10, 1910. 



Chapter VI 

TURKEY'S CHOICE 

FO R three months after the declaration of hostilities 
Constantinople was the centre of rival intrigues : 
the representatives of the Austro-German Alliance 
endeavouring to gain Turkey over to their side, while 
those of the Anglo- Russo- French Alliance endeavoured 
to persuade her to remain neutral. The Porte wavered 
and vacillated : the more intrepid spirits, led by Enver 
Pasha, the Minister of War, were for casting in their lot 
with the Central Powers ; but the Sultan, the Heir 
Apparent, the Grand Vizier, a majority of the Ministry, 
and a considerable section of the Committee of Union 
and Progress were opposed to so hazardous a course. 
Public opinion, in so far as such a thing may be said 
to exist in Turkey, was similarly divided : some of the 
newspapers said one thing, others said the contrary. 1 

1 See the official Correspondence Respecting Events Leading to 
the Rupture of Relations with Turkey (Cd. 7628). It is curious to 
compare the tale told in these dispatches, written on the spot 
and while things were still uncertain, with the narrative which 
the Foreign Office issued after the catastrophe for the satisfaction 
of a public angrily wanting to know " Why we lost Turkey." I 
refer to the Foreign Office Statement of Nov. 1, 1914, to Sir 
Louis Mallet's letter to Sir Edward Grey, dated London, Nov. 20, 
and to Sir Edward Grey's reply, dated Dec. 4 : these last two 
documents were not made public till Dec. 11 (Cd. 7716). 

194 



TURKEY'S CHOICE 195 

To understand the situation it is necessary to be able 
to visualize it from the Turkish standpoint — to see the 
value of the various factors as it appeared to the Turks 
themselves. Their indecision arose mainly from the 
uncertainty they felt about their future ; and, naturally, 
in trying to peer into the future they used as an index 
their experience in the past and the present. What 
was that experience ? Hitherto, deprived of British 
support, they had seen their Empire drifting helplessly 
towards the Russian gulf. And there was not the least 
sign of a change in England's attitude towards them. On 
the contrary, the first thing the British Government had 
done, when the war broke out, was to lay hands on the 
two Ottoman battleships that were just ready to be 
delivered to the Porte by their English builders : the 
vessels upon which Turkey anxiously counted in order 
to settle her still open differences with Greece. England 
was Russia's ally ; so was France. If Russia beat 
Germany, their doom would be nearer after the war 
than it had been before : there would be no power left 
on earth to check the Russian advance on Constantinople. 
These considerations pulled the Turks towards Germany. 
On the other hand, there was the old, old faith in English 
and French friendship — a faith which, in spite of many 
disappointments, still survived in the hearts of a people 
as slow to forget as they are to learn. Thus fear of 
Russia and gratitude to Germany for the aid she had 
given them of late years impelled the Turks to the Central 
group ; the lingering memory of ancient days prevented 
them from lightly joining the enemies of England and 
France. Small wonder that they wavered and vacillated. 

Let us now compare the pressure which each group of 
Powers brought to bear on the Turkish mind. To begin 
with the Germans. The Foreign Office, in its famous 



196 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

apologia of November 1, 1914, told us that " German 
officers in large numbers invaded Constantinople, usurped 
the authority of the Government, and coerced the Sultan's 
Ministers into taking up a policy of aggression," and, 
in the same breath, it told us that these gentlemen 
succeeded " by the bribes of which they have been so 
lavish." I am afraid this will hardly do : if the Germans 
were in command and in a position to coerce, they would 
not have been so foolish as to waste their money on 
bribery ; if, on the other hand, they did have recourse 
to bribery (as I believe to have been the case — not with 
the Germans only), that implies that they had not the 
power to coerce. Even in diplomacy you cannot have 
it both ways. The truth is much simpler. Besides 
appealing to personal prejudices and interests, the 
advocates of Germany made use of every form of reason- 
ing calculated to impress Turkish patriots — for, after 
all, dearly as the Turks love bakshish, some of them love 
their country, too. They pointed to their own military 
superiority ; they played upon their hearers' ambitions, 
promising to them the recovery of Egypt and the emanci- 
pation of the Indian and other Mohammedans from 
Christian rule ; they kindled their imagination with 
visions of an Ottoman Empire supreme in the East as 
the German would, after the war, be in the West. But, 
above all, they wrought upon their deep-rooted fear of 
Russia. Self-preservation is an even more potent 
incentive than self-aggrandizement. So behind all Ger- 
man blandishments and bribes there was always the 
argument : If Russia comes out of this struggle victorious, 
you Turks are lost for ever. You may see how little 
you can rely on English and French aid in the future, 
not only from Anglo-French policy in the past six years, 
but also from England's recent action. If England was 



TURKEY'S CHOICE 197 

not hostile to you, would she have crippled your poor navy 
by seizing those two battleships ? 

Such was the substance of what our Ambassador was 
pleased to call " German misrepresentations." 

The partisans of Germany at the Porte and in the Press 
of Stambul wielded that last argument with an effect 
all the more irresistible because it was accompanied 
with material proofs of Germany's earnestness. She 
hastened to turn our gratuitous blunder to account by 
filHng the gap left in the Ottoman navy with units from 
her own fleet (the Goeben and the Breslau more than 
made up for the loss of the Sultan Osman and the Resha- 
die), and presented to the starving State the wherewithal 
to pay its officials their long overdue salaries. 

England and her allies, in opposition to these German 
tactics, offered the Porte " definite assurances that, if 
Turkey remained neutral, her independence and integrity 
would be respected during the war and in the terms of 
peace." x \ 

Did Sir Edward Grey really believe that these assur- 
ances were an adequate counterpoise to the temptations 
held out by our rivals? Had he forgotten, or did he 
imagine that the Turks had forgotten, not only the old 
treaties of Paris and Berlin, which guaranteed " the 
independence and integrity " of Turkey in a far more 
binding form, but the very recent declaration of the 
Powers that the Balkan States would not be permitted 
to acquire territory at Turkey's expense ? Did he 
seriously expect the Turks to set off his " definite assur- 
ances " against their bitter and oft-repeated experience 
of the value of such pledges ? 

Thus, while the Germans gave the Turks battleships 

1 Foreign Office Statement,*Nov. 1, 1914 ; Sir Ed ward Grey, 
in the House of Commons, Oct. 14, 1915. 



198 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and gold, we gave them empty words. The result was 
that our partisans at Constantinople, left without any 
solid support, had to succumb. 

Some English diplomatists, intimately connected with 
this affair, have been heard to say in private conversation 
that the Young Turks had made up their minds long 
before the present war broke out— that for some years 
past their policy had been settled — and that their appar- 
ent hesitation was a mere expedient to gain time. This 
theory, in the light of antecedent events, is extremely 
probable. But it does not tally with the official apologia. 
Nor, what is more important, is it borne out by the 
published official documents. According to those docu- 
ments, the situation, at the beginning, was by no means 
hopeless for us. The Sultan's and the Grand Vizier's 
protestations of goodwill, our Ambassador declares, 
were neither a mere blind nor worthless. They were both 
genuine and weighty. And they coincided with the 
views of a majority of the Ministers, as well as with a 
very large body of less sophisticated and hardly articulate 
opinion. Yet we lost. Why ? Our failure cannot justly 
be ascribed to our Ambassador's incapacity, as it has 
been by certain newspapers. A British ambassador, 
under modern conditions, is nothing more than a mon- 
strously overpaid clerk sitting at the end of a telegraph 
wire. Deprived of all initiative, he has but one duty : 
to carry out the instructions he receives from head- 
quarters. Sir Louis Mallet performed this duty. Accord- 
ing to his Chief's testimony, he showed " marked ability, 
patience, and discretion in carrying out, in the face of 
great difficulties, the policy of His Majesty's Government." 
The responsibility for our failure, therefore, lies entirely 
with " the policy of His Majesty's Government " : the 
policy which the Foreign Office had consistently pursued 



TURKEY'S CHOICE 199 

towards the Ottoman Empire since 1907, and was still 
pursuing in 19 14 — the policy which had driven Turkey 
into Germany's arms — the policy which was dictated 
by the Anglo-Russian entente. Even if our late Ambassa- 
dor to the Porte was a diplomatist dowered with the 
local knowledge of a Stratford de Redcliffe, the energy of 
an Ignatieff, and the finesse of a Talleyrand, he could 
not have saved Turkey for us, unless he was authorized 
to reverse that policy. It is highly probable that, if 
at that critical moment the British Government had 
come forward to convince Turkey that she had nothing 
to fear from a Russian victory, the balance would have 
inclined to our side. By " convince " I do not mean 
empty " assurances," however " definite." No amount 
of platonic promises would have sufficed. What the 
occasion demanded was a prompt restitution of those 
two wretched battleships and generous financial assist 
ance — substantial tokens of a sincere determination to 
see the independence and integrity of the Ottoman 
Empire maintained. 

The Turks certainly had a right to expect a guarantee 
of this sort. From their point of view, the time had 
come for the British Government to begin fulfilling the 
bargain for which it 'got paid so long ago as 1878 : Eng- 
land then received from the Sultan the island of Cyprus 
in return for a definite guarantee of his remaining domi- 
nions in Asia. From our point of view the moment was 
eminently opportune for redeeming that " scrap of 
paper." Russia would have been thankful enough to 
have Great Britain's co-operation in the European War 
without insisting on Great Britain continuing to favour 
her ulterior ambitions in the Near East. The Tsar's 
advisers knew better than anybody else the tremendous 
blow to their most urgent interests that Turkey could 



200 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

deal by simply closing the Dardanelles. But, even 
if the Russian Government remained obdurate, we could 
afford, in the circumstances created by the war, to ignore 
her obduracy. The need of keeping Turkey out of the 
German camp at such a crisis was so imperative that it 
ought to have overridden all minor considerations. 

Instead of taking this strong line, the British Govern- 
ment preferred the line of least resistance. It adhered 
blindly to the path which possessed for it the fascination 
of familiarity. Its lack of vision, of courage, of origin- 
ality — whatever the proper name for its shortcomings 
may be — has cost] Russia military and political losses 
which cannot yet be computed, but can be conjectured. 
It has cost England all the ships and all the thousands 
of gallant lives that perished in the ill-starred attempt 
to force the Straits, and all the losses of men and prestige 
that the Mesopotamian expedition involved — not to 
mention the millions of pounds thrown away on both 
those thrice-unfortunate operations. A fraction of that 
sum judiciously invested at Constantinople in time 
would have averted all those calamities, and all the 
indirect consequences of Turkey's choice. 

But while the practical statesman must deplore the 
effects of that choice, the philosophical onlooker will 
derive a certain cold satisfaction from its perfect logi- 
cality. The capricious hand of chance had nothing to 
do with it. It all came about in strict accordance with 
the law of causation. Each side reaped precisely what 
it had sown. Indeed, when we contemplate the evolu- 
tion of the various belligerents' policy towards Turkey, 
as it has been set out in the foregoing pages, we cannot 
avoid sharing Sir Edward Grey's naive wonder " that the 
inevitable catastrophe did not occur sooner." 



PART II 
Chapter I 

GREECE AND THE POWERS 

THE relations of the Great Powers of Europe with 
the Greek people fall naturally into two distinct 
periods : the period from the Ottoman conquest to the 
outbreak of the War for Independence— in which 
Greece had no political history ; and the period from 
1 821— in which she has had too much. 

During the three and a half centuries which followed 
the faU of the Byzantine Empire the Greeks appear 
on the European canvas as a nation with a glorious past, 
a miserable present, and no future at all : a nation 
practically dead. Every now and again the world 
heard of them as being slaughtered, enslaved, or deported ; 
of their land being ravaged by the inundations of rival 
conquests and counter-conquests ; of their spirit being 
crushed under the duplicate weight of Turkish and 
Venetian tyranny. These were the oustanding features 
of the picture : the background was made up of a uniform 
gloom, in which the country that had taught mankind 
the meaning of civilization was seen as a desert strewn 
with the debris of its shattered glory. Western travellers 
and sojourners of all nationalities were busy among the 
mounds of rubbish, picking manuscripts, medals, and 

201 



202 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

marbles, buying or stealing what they could, sketching 
what they could not carry away, and scorning the people 
to whom they owed their ability to appreciate the literary 
and artistic value of their plunder. 

But if the Greeks had ceased to play an active part 
on the theatre of European politics, they played a passive 
part of considerable importance. All the Great Powers, 
France, England, and Russia, used them as a pawn in 
their Eastern game ; and their several ways of handling 
that pawn moulded the Greek attitude towards each of 
them. 

i. France and the Greeks 

No two races seem better designed by nature to esteem 
and love one another than the Hellenic and the Gallic. 
Both are lively and unreserved, eager for human inter- 
course, ever ready to absorb and impart information. 
In both acute intelligence and a propensity to disputa- 
tion are combined with a breadth of view that makes for 
tolerance. Neither ever experience any difficulty in 
fraternizing with people who differ from them in dress, 
speech, opinions, or customs. And yet during the long 
martyrdom of its subjection to the Turk the Greek found 
no more implacable enemy than the Frenchman. 

Since the ancient feud between the Eastern and the 
Western branches of the Catholic Church had culminated 
in a final schism (1054), the gulf that divided the two: 
great communions of the Christian world had been 
deepened and widened by the Pope's unwearied efforts 
to reduce the Patriarchs to submission. The most 
unscrupulous and most successful of those efforts, the 
Fourth Crusade (1204), had resulted in the capture of 
Constantinople, the massacre of her Christian inhabitants 
by the soldiers of the Cross, the pillage of her churches 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 203 

and her palaces, and the partition of the Greek Empire 
between the French and the Venetians. For sixty years 
the Greeks groaned under the heavy Latin yoke, and 
even after they succeeded in recovering their eapital, 
a large portion of their country had remained in the 
hands of various Western adventurers who, with few 
exceptions, treated the native populations in such a 
manner that the latter in most cases welcomed the Turk 
as a deliverer. 

The Ottoman cataclysm suspended for a moment 
the hostilities without reconciling the hearts of the two 
sects ; and from the middle of the sixteenth century 
Rome found her principal champion, and the most zealous 
promoter of her schemes of domination, in France. 
Religion, of course, was not the sole motive of French 
action in the Levant. The bigotry of the French mon- 
archs, strong as it was, obeyed the dictates of their 
ambition. The conversion of the Greeks would not have 
been of much use to them unless they could number the 
converts among the tools of their power. Thus temporal 
policy conspired with spiritual vanity : a new organization 
de propaganda fide was formed at Rome, and Catholic 
missionaries of all sorts were employed in the Ottoman 
Empire at a prodigious cost to conquer souls for the Pope 
and subjects for the King of France. 

The main field of this activity was Palestine. To get 
possession of the Holy Places was the pet object of the 
Western apostles, and they pursued that object without 
rest or remorse, in strict conformity to the maxim that 
the end sanctifies the means. To the cunning and violence 
of the Latins the Greeks opposed their own cunning and 
violence ; and the enmity on both sides broke out in 
frequent riots, which proved a source of endless annoy- 
ance, amusement at}4 eijigtasnt to. ttie. $ujt$n and his 



204 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Ministers. So long ago as 1599 we hear that " the Great 
Turk, displeased with the Christians, has commanded 
the Sepulchre of Christ with the Church at Jerusalem 
to be destroyed." 1 The command was not carried out, 
and the Holy Places continued throughout Ottoman 
history to supply an unholy battlefield to Greco-Latin 
animosity. These contests filled disinterested spectators 
with shame, and the uninitiated with amazement. They 
were ashamed at the iniquity of his Most Christian 
Majesty's methods, and amazed at the inexhaustible folly 
of his and all other Catholic subjects : immense sums 
were raised in every country of the Romish persuasion 
to support the Latin against the Greek friars in their 
pretensions to the guardianship of spots of ground which 
they fancied sacred. It was a mystery to them why 
Christian princes should suffer their subjects to be 
despoiled of so much wealth to enrich the enemies of 
Christendom. 

The Turks, naturally, took good care to foment so 
lucrative a dispute, giving sentence sometimes in favour 
of the one side and sometimes of the other ; and they 
further availed themselves of these quarrels to fleece 
both sides by exacting from each " loans " (amounting to 
£20,000 or £30,000) for their annual caravan of pilgrims 
to Mecca when it approached Jerusalem. The Ambassa- 
dor whose peculiar duty it was to protect the Romanists 
became on these occasions an object of pity to his col- 
leagues : " He wears out his very soul in fruitless appli- 
cations at the Porte to recover the sum of which his con- 
vent has been stripped. . . . What is more vexatious 
still, he is frequently imposed upon by the misrepresenta- 
tions and downright falsities of the priests and monks 

1 Henry Lello to Sir Robert Cecil, March 21, April 7, 1599. 
S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 4. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 205 

established in Palestine, who are continually pestering 
him with slanderous accusations against the Greeks : 
he is officially bound to support them, and after suffering 
in his credit at the Turkish Court, by the mortifications 
he is obliged to bear when these falsities are detected, 
he is reviled at Rome by the whole body of clergy as a 
lukewarm Christian and an unskilful politician." 1 

But the machinations of the missionaries were not 
limited to Palestine, nor was the French ambassador 
always an unwilling puppet in the hands of fanatical 
priests. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century 
the Jesuits who had established themselves at Constanti- 
nople planned with their patron the total subversion of 
the Eastern Church. All the episcopal sees were to be 
filled with proselytes bred in a Greek college founded for 
that purpose in Rome. Beginning at the very head, the 
conspirators attempted in 1623 to replace the GEcumeni- 
cal Patriarch by a creature of their own, who privately 
submitted to the Pope and undertook to sow by degrees 
the Romish doctrine among the Greeks, so that in time 
the whole Church might be seduced into subjection. 
Their zeal for the Faith was reinforced by personal hatred 
of the man who at the moment occupied the patriarchal 
throne : Cyril Lucaris — an enlightened and virtuous 
prelate with a strong leaning towards the Reformed 
Religion. Holding that the differences between Pro- 
testants and Greeks were but shells, while those between 
Latins and Greeks were kernels, 2 he tried to bring the 
theology of the Eastern Church into harmony with the 
teaching of Luther, and to that end he sent young Greek 
students to English and other Protestant universities 

1 Porter, 342-346. For other illustrations of this perennial 
feud see Ricaut's Memoirs, 315-317 ; Hammer, ix, x, xi, xii. 

2 George Sandys, in Purchas, vi. 185. 



206 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

in Western Europe. To the machinations of the Jesuits 
Cyril replied by publicly excommunicating their protege 
and his adherents — for, needless to say, the Patriarch's 
theological views did not commend themselves to all 
Greeks. The Jesuits and the French Ambassador then 
tried to ruin Cyril by accusing him to the Porte of an 
intention to betray an island in the Archipelago to the 
Florentines. The charge was absurd on the face of it ; 
but, as it was supported by the promise of 20,000 dollars, 
the Grand Vizier entertained it seriously. Cyril was 
arrested and put upon his trial. Nothing was proved 
against him, for there was nothing to prove. Neverthe- 
less, the Vizier, determined to earn his bakshish, banished 
him to Rhodes, where he was subjected to outrageous 
treatment, while the papal proselyte reigned in his stead. 
The Greeks at Constantinople, unwilling to submit to an 
excommunicated usurper, yet afraid to incur the wrath 
of the Grand Vizier by open rebellion, had recourse to 
passive resistance. They boycotted the cathedral, and 
refused to contribute the fees due to the Porte on the 
installation of a new Patriarch. The Jesuits and the 
French Ambassador, who had been relying upon these 
contributions for making good to the Grand Vizier their 
promise — for the money they expected from Rome had 
not yet been raised — found themselves in an awkward 
corner. But their ingenuity proved equal to the diffi- 
culty. Discarding their protege, they offered the patri- 
archate to one Anthimos, a silly but wealthy Archbishop of 
Adrianople, who promptly advanced part of the bakshish 
out of his own pocket, and levied the balance on his help- 
less flock by force of a Turkish command. 

The plan of the Jesuits was to keep Anthimos — who 
was not privy to their ulterior schemes, and had no 
ntention of recognizing the Pope's supremacy — on the 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 207 

throne until a suitable successor should come from 
Rome. But the fall of the friendly Grand Vizier upset 
all their calculations. Cyril's partisans, seizing the 
chance presented by the change of Government, borrowed 
from the Dutch Resident, at usurious interest, 60,000 
dollars, and, armed with this irrefutable proof of the old 
Patriarch's innocence, they found no difficulty in obtain- 
ing his liberty. Cyril returned suddenly to Constanti- 
nople, and met with a warm welcome from the vast 
majority of the Greek people. His sensational arrival 
startled Anthimos out of his few wits. Without delay 
he voluntarily offered to surrender his place to the rightful 
owner. But the French Ambassador, as soon as he heard 
of his decision, sent for him, and by promising, on one 
hand, the protection of the Pope and the King of France, 
and, on the other, a sum of 40,000 dollars wherewith to 
support his claim at the Porte, induced him to change 
his mind. Anthimos went back to his seat escorted by 
M. de Cesy's dragoman and a guard of Janissaries, who 
threatened with condign punishment all those who 
refused to acknowledge him. But the bulk of the Greek 
population, both lay and clerical, adhered to their old 
pastor with so much resolution that the wretched Anthi- 
mos, frightened at the consequences, once more changed 
his mind. Without saying a word to his French patron, 
he crossed the Golden Horn in the night, went to the 
Dutch Embassy where Cyril was staying, acknowledged 
his error, begged for pardon, and resigned. There- 
upon Cyril, with the help of the Dutch dollars and the 
all but unanimous consent of his flock, was restored to 
the throne. 

The French Ambassador, enraged, swore that he 
would continue persecuting Cyril with the last drop of 
his blood. The Jesuits did not give up hope ; they 



208 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

only gave way to time, and watched for another oppor- 
tunity. In January, 1624, there arrived from Rome 
an archimandrite with a message from the society de 
propaganda fide that, notwithstanding their first failure 
for want of funds, they were determined to carry on the 
struggle, and promised to find 20,000 dollars, if they were 
assured of the deposition of Cyril and the election of this 
emissary in his place. A fresh series of intrigues was 
set on foot. New charges were invented against Cyril. 
But Cyril succeeded in foiling his enemies and again 
establishing his innocence at the Porte by another round 
sum of money. For nearly twelve months nothing 
further happened to disturb the peace of the Patriarch. 
But his enemies had not abandoned their hostility ; 
they had only changed their tactics. A resolution was 
taken in Rome first to discredit him with his supporters 
and then to undo him. For this purpose they sent to 
Constantinople, in February, 1625, a young Levantine 
graduate of the College at Rome — subtle, cunning, and, 
compared with those with whom he was matched, learned. 
This agent approached Cyril with the offer, in the Pope's 
name, of a sum of money to relieve the Greek Church of 
its actual debt and a pension for the future, asking in 
return that the Patriarch should subscribe to the decisions 
of the Council of Florence, yield some degree of pre- 
eminence to Rome, and publicly condemn and anathema- 
tize the Protestants. Cyril, longing for rest, abstained 
from entering into a controversy, but played with the 
emissary. The latter, when he saw the futility of his efforts 
to buy the Patriarch, turned the same pecuniary argu- 
ment against him. By pointing out to some leading 
Greeks how much of their community's financial burden 
was due to Cyril, and working upon the theological or 
personal bias of others, he managed to form a party 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 209 

of opposition, who, pretending to speak for the whole 
community, complained to the Grand Vizier of the 
Patriarch and demanded the appointment of another, 
promising a fee of 20,000 dollars. The bait, of course, 
was easily swallowed by the Vizier, and poor Cyril was 
forced to retire and hide, till the storm blew over ; for 
had he been taken while it raged, he knew that not only 
his liberty but his very life would be in danger. This 
gave time to his friends to plead for him, and another 
spell of peace was purchased from the Porte at the expense 
of 10,000 dollars. 

But, though Cyril was wearied, Rome was not. To- 
wards the end of 1626 there appeared at Constantinople 
an Antipatriarch from the Pope, with the title of Apostolic 
Suffragan : accompanied by a Treasurer — for St. Peter 
dared not trust the bankrupt French Ambassador with 
his purse. These emissaries were invested with plenary 
powers to plant and uproot, to create new Latin bishops 
in Smyrna and many of the Greek islands, and, in short, 
to do all that might conduce to the triumph of the cause, 
in co-operation with M. de Cesy and the Jesuits. But 
the Antipatriarch's zeal was greater than his discretion. 
From the moment he landed in the Levant he began to 
flaunt the authority that was to be his before the Latin 
friars and the Catholic population. Some of these 
persons were alarmed for their own interests and privi- 
leges ; others were far-sighted enough to perceive that, 
should any serious trouble arise, all Catholics in the 
East would be involved in a common ruin. The dread 
of a papal excommunication restrained these malcontents 
from offering open opposition ; but the Greeks, free 
from such fear and determined to preserve their freedom, 
spared no efforts to discover the inner springs of this 
new plot and to denounce it to the Turks. Assisted by 



210 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

some powerful friends, of whom more anon, they suc- 
ceeded. The Apostolic Suffragan had to flee ; the new 
Latin bishops he had created were imprisoned and 
deprived of their patents, and the French Ambassador 
was furious. 1 

The sequel of this sordid story must be deferred to 
the next chapter. What has been said is enough to show 
the aims and the methods of French diplomacy towards 
the Greeks at that period. Under the auspices of that 
same diplomacy the Jesuits, in spite of occasional set- 
backs, extended their operations. About 1645 they 
settled at Athens, where they were reinforced, in 1658, 
by a contingent of Capuchins. Chios, Naxos, Milos, 
Crete, Cyprus, and other parts of the Greek world were 
flooded with French monks. To French travellers these 
" good fathers " were nothing but apostles of light : 
" They teach Humanity and the Christian Doctrine 
to the children that are sent to school to them," writes 
one. 2 Another adds : " They instruct such as offer 
themselves ; they baptize ; they bring back to the 
Flock sheep that have strayed ; and open the Gates 
of Heaven to the Elect." 3 But from the same witnesses 
we learn how those Gates were opened. 

When theological eloquence failed, recourse was had 
to physical force ; and French pirates were called in to 
give point to the sermons of the French priests. If a 
Greek fell out with a Latin, the latter had but to com- 
plain to the first corsair that put into port ; the Greek 

1 See Sir Thomas Roe's " Relation of the Practices of the 
Jesuits against Cyrillus, Patriarch of Constantinople," enclosed 
in his letter to Charles I, Feb. 22, O.S., 1627 ( = 8) ; and various 
letters of his to Archbishop Abbot and others. Negotiations of 
Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte, pp. 134, 146, 
184, 214, 487, 758, etc. 

2 Thevenot, i. 93. 3 Tournefort, iii. 252. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 211 

was sent for, taken up if he refused to obey the summons, 
and bastinadoed. The corsairs decided lawsuits, without 
barristers or attorneys. The evidence was carried on 
board ship, and the party against whom the trial went 
was sentenced to give satisfaction either in money or in 
dry blows. These judges acted gratis — " for the glory 
of God" — unless, perhaps, the successful litigant pre- 
sented them with a hogshead of wine or a good fat calf. 

The Greeks, it seems, would now and then seek to 
exchange the lot of schismatics for the less odious name 
of infidels, choosing to turn Turks rather than Papists. 
When this happened, the French corsairs were more 
efficient in preserving Christianity than the cleverest 
missionaries : witness the following incident. Once ten 
families of Naxos embraced Islam ; the Christians of 
the Latin communion got them snapped up by the 
privateers, who carried them off and sold them at Malta! 
After this, we are assured, " no one has thought it worth 
while to turn Mohammedan at Naxos." 1 

The Greeks retaliated by the only means available : 
" The Grand Signor never need to fear any rebellion in 
this island : the moment a Latin stirs, they give notice 
to the Cadi." 2 

The scientist to whom we owe these pleasant side- 
lights on missionary work exhibits in his own tone the 
attitude which his royal patron and his readers expected 
from him. His instinctive disposition as a Frenchman 
is one of sympathy with the Greeks. He is attracted 
by their sociability and vivacity. Of one of them he 
says : " He is a fine old gentleman, has wit at will, and 
crowns conversation with the charms of that Greek elo- 
quence which is the soul of good-fellowship." Even for 
the Greek monks, who generally were his hosts, he has 
1 Tournefort, i. 188. 2 Ibid. i. 230. 



212 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

nothing but good to say, as human beings : their ready 
hospitality, their courtesy, their kindliness appeal to 
him strongly : " These Greek monks, it is true, are a good 
sort of people," and, to apply to them the words he uses 
about the Armenians, " would be very good Christians 
were it not for the Schism whereby they separate from 
us." But, alas ! " Their ancient heresy concerning the 
Holy Ghost which, according to most of their doctors, 
does not proceed from the Son," their habit of administer- 
ing the Eucharist in two kinds, their non-belief in Purga- 
tory, and (an objection most strange in the mouth of a 
Romanist) " their devotion to saints and particularly 
to the Holy Virgin " — all these were crimes for which 
there could be no pardon. Then again, the obstinacy 
of these schismatics ! They are neither to be bought 
nor bent ! " Our missionaries find it very difficult to 
recall the Greeks to their true belief." 1 Thus the 
amiable scientist does his best to descend to the mental 
level of a theologian. 

When such was the attitude of a cultivated man of the 
world, it is easy to imagine the aversion, embittered by 
perpetual disputes and mutual injuries, which each sect 
of ignorant bigots must have nourished for the other. 
Yet, human nature being, on the whole, stronger and 
better than theology, the; French and the Greeks would 
intermingle when left alone. The same witness who in 
one volume of his work tells us that at Naxos " the 
enmity between the Greek and Latin gentry is irre- 
concilable : the Latins would rather make alliance with 
the meanest peasant than marry Greek ladies ; which 
made them procure from Rome a dispensation to inter- 
marry with their cousin-germans," in another volume 
informs us that the male offspring of mixed marriages 
1 Tournefort, i. 39, 95, 148. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 213 

at Naxos followed the father's way of worship, and the 
female the mother's. 1 The truth is that the ban on 
intermarriage, like the dispensation for incest, proceeded 
from Rome and Paris. The French Government for- 
bade French merchants to marry in Turkey, on the 
grounds that, " women in that country are very apt 
to run men into excessive expenses " — a palpable ab- 
surdity, for a mistress the world over is a far more expen- 
sive luxury than a wife — and, which was the true reason, 
" to alienate a husband from his native country." 2 This 
was precisely the suicidal policy which the French con- 
querors of Greece had adopted in the thirteenth century 
to their undoing. 3 But, again, human nature being 
stronger and wiser than human policy, we find that even 
French corsairs, " notwithstanding the King's orders, 
who for the Nation's honour has very wisely forbid any 
of his subjects marrying in the Levant without leave 
of his Ambassador," would marry Greek women. 4 But 
Paris always was as determined to keep up national 
distinctions as Rome was to maintain religious barriers. 
For two centuries the whole influence and energy of 
France seemed to be directed by a conclave of Inquisitors. 
This deliberate policy had its inevitable effect on 
public opinion. An independent thinker like Voltaire 
might lift his voice on behalf of the Greeks ; the average 
French writer had no independent point of view. He 
wrote as journalists write. Voltaire's contemporary 
Volney records for us the French estimate of the 
Greeks, common in the eighteenth century, with refreshing 
conciseness : " Travellers and our merchants agree that 
the Greek Christians are in general wicked and deceitful, 

1 Tournefort, i. 229 ; ii. 1. 2 p or t e r, 407. 

8 See W. Miller's The Latins in the Levant, 148. 
* Tournefort, i. 271. 



214 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

abject in adversity, insolent in prosperity." x Indeed, 
Volney, in speaking of the Greeks as Christians, displayed 
unusual generosity. The Catholics in the Levant usually 
spoke of Christians and Greeks. 

It had a corresponding effect upon the Greeks also. 
Their temperament inclined them to like the French ; 
their miserable position impelled them to look to France, 
as to every other Christian State, for salvation from the 
Moslem hell. But, instead of succour from their more 
fortunate co-religionists, they got insults, blows, and ran- 
cour : instead of being cherished as fellow-Christians, 
they found themselves anathematized as schismatics, 
persecuted as heretics, and despised as slaves — men fit 
only to be drubbed in this world and damned in the next. 
In brief, treated as enemies, the Greeks became enemies. 
It may be that they often dissembled their hostility in 
order to avoid injury, that they had recourse to flattery 
in order to find favour. But in their hearts they could 
not but reciprocate the feelings which they inspired. 

And yet — such is the blinding potency of sectarian 
and patriotic ardour — a brilliant Frenchman like Chateau- 
briand, in describing the missionary activities of his 
nation during this period, could write of those missioners 
as persons " who spread the name, the glory, and the love 
of France " in the Levant ! 2 



2. England and the Greeks 

An agreeable contrast to the dealings of France with 
the Greek people at the time of its sore tribulation is 
offered by the dealings of England. Religion and politics 

1 Travels, 550. 

2 Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary (Eng. tr, 
j.811), i, 3j, 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 215 

here also were the motives, but they moved the persons 
concerned to an entirely different measure. 

Under Queen Elizabeth and her immediate successors 
the English Government never ceased to display the 
kindest interest in the Christians of the East, and to 
protect them, if not against their Turkish tyrants, who 
were England's friends, at least against their Catholic 
persecutors, who were England's rivals. Our statesmen 
realized that the French intrigues in the Ottoman Empire 
had a wider scope than the conversion of the Greek 
Church into a papal dependency : they were part of 
that far-reaching Romanist campaign which began 
directly after the triumph of the Reformation. The 
hundred years between the rise of the Order of Jesus 
and the Peace of Westphalia (1 540-1 648) were years of 
frantic endeavour on the part of the Catholic Powers to 
subdue or seduce Europe to the double slavery repre- 
sented by ecclesiastical dogmatism and political despotism. 
It behoved the opponents of Rome to present to her 
aggression a front marked by similar solidarity. The 
danger which threatened the Greek Church was the same 
danger that threatened to Protestant interest and the 
independence of England. It followed that England, 
by espousing the Greek cause, served her own. 1 Acting 

1 This view is expounded with great force and insight by Sir 
Thomas Roe in his letters from Constantinople : ' ' Your Grace 
may now see the universal practice of those engines ; no Church 
shall be safe that is not theirs : Germany, France, Bohemia hath 
lately felt it ; Greece is now in project, and God defend thy little 
flock in England. Who is so blind as not to discern these miners ? 
Here it may be my happiness to repay them." — To the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, May — , 1623. " Certainly, my Lord, it is 

time to oppose all wit and strength against a bitter cup mingling 
for us. I know, you are advised from better and nearer hands, 
yet at this great distance I am able to judge that the enemy 
mineth universally at the root both of our kingdom and religion 



2i 6 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

on this view, those who controlled England's foreign 
policy devoted themselves from the first to the cultivation 
of cordial relations with the Eastern Church, and even 
dreamed of a union between it and the Church of Eng- 
land. 

Elizabeth's ambassador, Edward Barton, used his 
influence at the Porte to procure the promotion to the 
(Ecumenical see of Constantinople of the Patriarch of 
Alexandria Meletios x — a prelate credited with Reforming 
tendencies. The relations between that Greek ecclesiastic 
and the English diplomatist were those between two 
affectionate brothers. They often dined and prayed 
together, and bewailed in company that they had been 
born in such an age — " worse than the World of Iron." 2 
A contemporary has left us a most sympathetic portrait 
of " this holy Patriarke Padre Melete — a very comely 
black long-bearded man. He never did eat any sort of 
flesh in all his lifetime. . . . When he hath eaten with 
the Ambassador, our table was ever furnished with the 
best fish, and not the weakest wine. . . . This man 
was very meek in the shew of his behaviour towards all 
sorts and manner of men, which amongst the Greeks 
made him to be much respected and beloved. ... Of 
all these Moderne Greekes, I have not heard of a better 
man ; most certainly he was a true Christian Professor, 
although the times permitted not that he might declare 
it, except in private, to some of learning and under- 
standing." The friendship ended only with Barton's 

. . . a general resolution now to pursue the monarchy of Europe." 
— To Lord Conway, Jan. 26, O.S., 1627 (=-8). Negotiations, "etc., 
pp. 147, 739. 

1 Barton to Cecil, April 4, 1597. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 
No. 3. 

2 Letter from Meletios to Barton, dated May 26, 1593, in 
Purchas, ix. 483. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 217 

life. When the Englishman was on his death-bed, the 
Greek came to him, and thus an eyewitness describes 
what passed between them : " The Patriarke and he did 
weep upon one another's necks, he kissed the dying man 
who had seriously recommended a kinsman and other 
his servants unto him, pretending that, of the monies 
which by his promises he was behind with him, his 
desire was that he would be good unto his said servants, 
and so they parted." The monies in question were the 
sums which Barton had advanced to get Meletios his 
promotion to the throne of Constantinople. But Meletios 
found that seat so thorny — " the Turk's Ministers did so 
much and extraordinarily exact upon him " * — that 
he afterwards resigned it, and went back to Alexandria. 

Henry Lello, Barton's successor, carried on the tradi- 
tion, taking an active part in the planting and supplanting 
of Greek prelates, and co-operating with them against 
the common enemy. Likewise Lello's successor Glover 
found in the Patriarch of Constantinople a useful ally 
in his fight with his French colleague for the consulage. 2 

Throughout the reign of James I this close intercourse 
between the English Embassy and the Greek Patriarchate 
was energetically promoted by George Abbot, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who, not content with propagating 
his Calvinistic doctrines at home, had persuaded the 
King to exert all his influence for their dissemination in 

1 John Sanderson (1601), in Purchas, ix. 484-485. Cp. 
William Biddulph, ibid. viii. 259. Biddulph ascribes the 
Patriarch's resignation to the ill-feeling which his Protestant 
sympathies had excited against him among the Greeks : " they 
said, their Patriarch was an Englishman and therefore displaced 
him. Yet bearing some reverence towards him for his learning, 
they made him Patriarch of Alexandria." No doubt both state- 
ments are true. 

2 Biddulph, I.e. ; Glover to Salisbury, Sept. 24, 1607. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 5. 



218 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

every country in Europe. The Greeks came in for a 
full share of Abbot's zeal, and several of them were 
educated at Oxford at his expense. Anglo-Greek amity 
reached its acme in the decade during which the ambas- 
sadorial post at Constantinople was filled by Abbot's 
friend Sir Thomas Roe, and the Patriarchal throne by the 
great Cyril Lucaris. 

Roe sang to people at home the praises of Cyril : 
" The Patriarch of the Greek Church here is a man of 
more learning and wit than hath possessed that place in 
many years, and in religion a direct Calvinist ; yet he 
dares not shew it : but it were an easy work, upon any 
alteration here, to settle that Church in a right way : 
the ways of the Almighty are wonderful and secret." 
People at home responded in the same key : " I do not 
doubt but that in opinion of religion he is, as we term him, 
a pure Calvinist ; and so the Jesuits in these parts do 
brand him. I have therefore received from him divers 
letters written in the old Greek, by which I do perceive 
that there breatheth in him a soul as, on the one side, 
full of piety and devotion ; so, on the other side, full of 
prudence and discretion. I had published his letters 
to the whole world, but that peradventure it might have 
caused him some blame for some free, but true, speeches 
touching the place wherein you live. I do now write unto 
him, and do desire that by you all good correspondence 
between him and me may be continued." x 

It was just then that the Jesuit plot for the utter sub- 
version of the Greek Church came to a head. As was 
to be expected, the English ambassador threw himself 
into the very thick of it. Cyril took no step without 
Roe's advice, and the two hunted and were hunted in 

1 Roe to the Lord Keeper, April 29, 1622 ; Abbot to Roe, 
Nov. 20, 1622 : Negotiations, pp. 36, 102. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 219 

couples. We left the Pope's Antipatriarch fleeing, and 
the French Ambassador fuming. This situation lasted 
till the summer of 1627, when another act was added to 
the drama. 

There was a certain Greek monk of the name of Metaxa, 
a member of a well-known family of Cephalonia, con- 
nected with the merchants of the Levant Company. 
This monk, impelled by love of learning and his country, 
went to England to study, and after some years spent 
there he came to Constantinople in an English ship, 
bringing with him a printing-press made at his expense 
and a number of books printed in England, his object 
being to do what he could to rescue his compatriots from 
being " drowned in invincible ignorance." Now, the 
Turkish Government in those days was very careful to 
prevent the least ray of light from penetrating among 
its subjects. Schools, if they existed at all, existed only 
through the corruptibility of its servants. Books, in so 
far as they found their way into Turkey, did so thanks 
to the corruptibility of the Custom House officers. In 
the circumstances, it can easily be understood that the 
importation of a printing-press into the very capital 
of the Empire, and the setting it up under the very nose 
of the Sultan, was an operation of some delicacy and 
danger. Metaxa, as soon as he landed, went to confer 
with the Patriarch, and the Patriarch recommended him 
to the English ambassador, asking for his assistance 
to smuggle the printing-press through the Customs. 

" After having well considered the religious purpose, 
and that I found it was undertaken by the consent of 
many wise men in England, and for the glory of God ; 
though I foresaw some possibility of trouble," says the 
Ambassador, "yet I resolved to assist them, if they 
would be directed and proceed in my way and by my 



220 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

counsel." There followed a secret and earnest con- 
sultation in the English Embassy between Roe, the 
Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Alexandria, 
who happened to be there, and the Dutch Resident. They 
decided that it would be more safe and less scandalous 
to proceed openly in a matter which could not be con- 
cealed. Cyril first applied to the Grand Vizier for per- 
mission. Then Roe took the matter up, got through 
the Custom House both the printing-press and the books 
unsearched, and brought them to the embassy. The two 
Patriarchs, knowing the Turks and the Jesuits as they 
did, were afraid that, in spite of the official permission, 
there might be trouble, and begged the English Ambassa- 
dor to allow the press to work in his house. Roe, equally 
well aware of the conditions, was afraid to compromise 
himself to that extent, but advised them to go on with the 
work on their own account, using all necessary caution, 
and promised his help if there should be any trouble. 
So a house near the embassy was found, and the press 
was set up. 

But the French embassy was not far off, and no sooner 
was Metaxa settled to his work than M. de Cesy and his 
Jesuits betook themselves to theirs. Their grievance 
was that the object of that press was to publish books 
against the Church of Rome, or at least, by printing 
catechisms, to take away from the Latin missionaries 
their monopoly of teaching children. The Jesuits began 
by inviting Metaxa to join them in their monastery and 
carry on his literary labours under their protection. On 
finding the Greek proof against these crude tactics, they 
hastened to denounce him to the Orthodox as a Lutheran, 
pointing in proof to the royal arms of England which 
adorned the press and the front page of the books he had 
brought with him : books so adorned could not but be 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 221 

tainted with heresy. Metaxa went on with his work 
unmoved, when a report reached him that he was to be 
murdered in his bed. Roe thereupon consented to let 
him sleep in the embassy for safety. The Jesuits remained 
quiescent, until Cyril sent to the press a little treatise 
on the tenets of the Greek Church, chiefly intended to 
exculpate the author from the charges of heresy which 
were brought against him. It was apparently a sort of 
declaration of faith like Bishop Jewell's Apologia of the 
Church of England, which John Smith had translated 
into excellent Greek for the information of the Eastern 
Church. 1 Cyril had written it some time before with 
the intention of having it printed in England and dedi- 
cated to James I ; but now, having the opportunity of 
producing the work in Constantinople, he did so, only 
changing the epistle dedicatory from James, who was 
dead, to Charles. " This," says Roe, " provoked the 
rancour of the French and the spite of the Jesuits, 
who, not able to endure that any honour from the East- 
church should be done to his Majesty, could no longer 
contain themselves, but conspired to disturb and over- 
throw both the author, work, and workmen." 

The method they adopted to satisfy their malice was 
characteristic. They got hold of another work of Cyril's 
printed in England and brought out by Metaxa, and 
studied it carefully to discover some utterance hostile 
to Islam. They succeeded. The subject of that book 
was to prove the divinity of Jesus against the Jews, 
but it touched incidentally on the Mohammedan view 
of Christ. With this weapon in their hands, they ap- 
proached a favourite of the Grand Vizier's, through 
whom they informed his Highness that this Metaxa 
was a military officer sent to Constantinople to stir up 

1 Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae Graece versa. Oxoniae, 1614J 



222 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

sedition ; that, under the pretext of printing books 
for children, he had distributed other works against the 
Koran ; that these works, written by the Patriarch in 
order to inflame the Greeks, had been brought from 
England secretly in an English ship, and many of them 
had been sent to the Cossacks to incite them to join in a 
revolt ; lastly, that Metaxa and the Patriarch carried 
on their nefarious intrigues under the English Ambassa- 
dor's protection. 

These accusations were capital ; and the accusers, 
while aiming at the life of the two Greeks, hoped, at 
least, to discredit the English Ambassador so that he 
should no longer be in a position to protect their victims. 
The Vizier, more Turcico, without examination, ordered 
a company of Janissaries to break into Metaxa's house 
and surprise him in his revolutionary work. On the 
French Ambassador's advice, this assault was timed so 
as to take place on Twelfth Night, when Roe had invited 
the Patriarch, the Bailo of Venice, and other friends to 
see an English mask : M. de Cesy saying that he wished 
to provide sauce for the Englishman's feast. And so 
on that day, at high noon, suddenly one hundred and 
fifty armed Janissaries attacked Metaxa's house and 
blocked all the approaches to the English Embassy. 
In the midst of the tumult Roe's secretary and Metaxa, 
coming from Galata, found their way to the Embassy 
barred. Some of Metaxa's servants, who had already 
been arrested, pointed him out to the Janissaries ; but 
others affirmed that he was one of the English Ambassa- 
dor's staff. This lie and the hat he wore helped him to 
get through the cordon and under Roe's roof, half dead 
with fright. The Janissaries, having failed to secure 
the master, bound all his servants, broke open his chests, 
and carried everything away — printing-press, books, 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 223 

papers, plate, cash. As they went off with the booty, 
one of the French dragomans informed them that the 
offender was hiding in the English Embassy ; but the 
captain of the Janissaries replied that he had no order 
to follow him thither. Roe had his mask all the same, 
only the poor Patriarch, with such a charge hanging 
over his head, durst not cross the Golden Horn and join in 
the feast. 

The next day his books were examined, the passage 
referring to Mohammed was submitted to the interpreta- 
tion of two Greek renegades and some Churchmen before 
the Vizier ; but it turned out to be not of such a nature 
as to incriminate the author or the printer. Nevertheless, 
the Patriarch, confident in his innocence, presented 
himself at the Porte to answer his accusers in person. 
The Vizier acquitted Cyril of the charge of blasphemy ; 
but he still had his suspicions of Metaxa. The story of 
his being a warrior in disguise and of his correspondence 
with the Cossacks had sunk ; the fact that he lived under 
the English Ambassador's protection looked suspicious ; 
and then there were those English armorial devices on 
his books : all these circumstances savoured of high 
treason. 

Roe thought it advisable, before the Vizier's suspicions 
struck deep roots, to go and tell him the whole truth : 
he had received Metaxa into his house to save him from 
the fury of the Janissaries, but had not the least desire 
to stand between him and justice. Metaxa, he reminded 
the Vizier, was the gentleman who had been presented 
to his Highness by the Bailo — a Venetian subject from 
Cephalonia, a monk. The Venetian Bailo must answer 
for Metaxa's actions if they were reprehensible. Really, 
Roe went on, it was most singular conduct on his High- 
ness's part, after giving official permission for the press, 



224 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

to suspect so rashly friends in whom he had often pro- 
fessed confidence, to attack the houses of their subjects 
and to despoil them at the instigation of persons whom 
he knew to be enemies to the State. The Vizier, having 
recalled Metaxa to mind, and considered Roe's words, 
felt ashamed of his precipitation and credulity. He said 
nothing had been farther from his thoughts than to doubt 
Roe or to affront him : he could only wonder at the im- 
pudence of those who had so grossly deceived him. He 
concluded with an assurance that, if he had done Roe 
an injustice unwittingly, he was ready to do him justice 
deliberately. All the goods of Metaxa would he restored 
with honour, and those who had brought about this 
scandal would be punished in an exemplary manner. 
The Vizier proved as good as his word. The Jesuits 
were arrested, put in irons, and deported, as disturbers 
of the peace of the Empire ; and Roe was able to moralize 
on the lot of those who dig pits for others, while he 
thanked God for having saved him from " the hazard 
of the soldiers' fury and a sack of his house or some 
worse conclusion." 1 

Roe was not an English diplomatist of the sort with 
which we are familiar : he was a man of wide experience, 
indefatigable energy, and manifold attainments. No 
merchant of his time had a more thorough first-hand 
acquaintance with the requirements of English commerce 

1 See Roe's " Relation " to the King, Feb. 10, 1627 ( = 8), and 

for further details his letters to Conway, -Lj ; Feb. — , to 

Feb. 5 19 

Sir Isaac Wake, March 2-, 162^, in Negotiations, pp. 738, 742, 779. 
17 8 

The originals of these documents are to be found in S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 14. The same Bundle contains no fewer than 
twenty-two letters from Cyril to Roe, their dates ranging from 
Jan. 16, to March 8, some of them dated the same day. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 225 

in every part of the world, from the West Indies to the 
East Indies ; few contemporary statesmen could rival 
him in knowledge of European politics ; and to all his 
other attributes he joined an enthusiasm for learning 
which could not be surpassed by any professional scholar. 
While engaged in this perilous diplomatic war at Con- 
stantinople, he found time to hunt for ancient statues 
and coins, on behalf of influential dilettantes at home 
such as the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Arundel, 
and to conspire with the Archbishop of Canterbury to 
rob the Greek Church of such old ecclesiastical manu- 
scripts as had escaped the clutches of previous collectors. 
And, as the irony of things would have it, if any memory 
of the great Jacobean diplomat still lingers among his 
countrymen, it is associated not with his lifelong labours 
in Europe and Asia, but with the prosecution of his hobby 
in the dingy cells of a Greek monastery. 

The Patriarch Cyril, as ardent in the preservation of 
the remnants of his country's literary patrimony as Roe 
was in its spoliation, had brought together a large quantity 
of volumes from Alexandria and other parts of the East. 
Roe represented to him that his treasures should not be 
suffered to rot and rust among ignorant Greek caloyers 
who would never make use of them : that, by rights, 
they belonged to the Church of God, namely the Church 
of England, which would publish them and use their 
contents as cudgels for the Papists. If Cyril would let 
him have those musty old tomes, Roe promised to supply 
him in exchange with a complete library of brand new 
editions of the classical authors, and he got King James 
and Archbishop Abbot to help him in this campaign of 
cajolery. The Patriarch could not very well refuse to be 
coaxed by an ally to whom he owed his life, and so many 
a piece of patristic literature found its way from Con- 



226 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

stantinople to London. Most of the loot, no doubt, 
consisted of polemical rubbish for which we have now 
very little use ; but there were exceptions. At the very 
moment when the crisis just described was over, Roe 
was able to report to the Archbishop's chaplain that he 
had obtained from the Patriarch ten volumes — one of 
them very old, worm-eaten and decayed : " but by the 
industry of Mataxa (sic), we shall repair it to be well- 
read." x This, perhaps, was the famous Codex Alexan- 
drinus — a manuscript of the Old and New Testaments, 
according to palaeographers dating from the fifth century. 
Originally presented by Cyril to King Charles, it graced 
the royal library till 1753, when it was transferred to 
the British Museum, to form one of the numerous glories 
for which Bloomsbury is indebted to Greece. 

Directly the crisis was over, Roe obtained the release 
from his infernal post, for which he had repeatedly 
begged the home Government. After his departure, 
Cyril continued to enjoy the protection of his successor 
Sir Peter Wyche (1628-1639), who, to use his own words, 
" had very good correspondence with this Patriarch, 
and did employ maine times the authority of your 
Majesty towards the advancement of the Church's 
affairs." 2 But the combination of French enmity, 
Jesuitical craft, and Greek conservatism proved too 
powerful for English diplomacy. After being deposed 
and reinstated several times, this progressive prelate 
was finally thrown into the Seven Towers — on a charge, 
brought against him by the Jesuits and other French 

1 Roe to Dr. Goad, Feb. — , 162?. S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 

26 8 

No. 14. 

2 Wyche to the King, April H, 1629. Ibid. 

27 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 227 

religious of Galata, of carrying on a secret correspondence 
with the Muscovites and Cossacks — and strangled (1638). 1 

During the next twenty years England was too en- 
grossed by her own feuds to participate in those of others. 
But the thread which had been cut by the Rebellion was 
taken up at the Restoration. 

Charles II, at the beginning of his reign, spared some 
time from his dogs and his duchesses to interest himself 
in the destinies, if not in the doctrines, of Eastern Christen- 
dom, commanding his representative at Constantinople, 
" You are by all fair means to countenance and encourage 
all good Christians within your precinct. . . . And, as 
far as it may consist with our honour and the Interests of 
our Merchants trading into those parts, you shall show 
all kindness and humanity to those of the Greek Church. 
You must be very diligent to observe and prevent the 
contrivances of such as labour underhand by indirect 
means to engage the chief Ministers of that State, especi- 
ally such Jesuits and friars as under religious pretences 
compass other ends." 2 But later on, when he sold him- 
self to France, the Merry Monarch changed his whole 
attitude towards her victims. His ambassador Sir John 
Finch (1674-1681) went out with instructions to act in 
concord with his French colleague M. de Nointel (1670- 
1680). In pursuance of these orders, he immediately 
entered with the latter into friendly negotiations, and 
" happily accommodated the differences between us and 
the French Nation." 3 

1 Ricaut's History of the Turkish Empire (1680), i. 51, 71. 
Ricaut adds : " In his place one Carsila was ordained — a pretended 
friend to the Roman Faction — and his Commission was obtained 
from the Grand Signor at the expense of 50,000 crowns, one 
moiety whereof was paid from Rome." 

2 "Instructions for Lord Winchilsea, " 1661, in S.P. Foreign, 
Turkey, No. 17. 

3 Sir Paul Ricaut to . . . ?, Smyrna, July 3, 1675. Ibid. 
No. 19. 



228 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The impression of this entente cor Male on the poor 
Greeks was deplorable. They saw the representative of 
the country which had hitherto posed as their protector 
hand in glove with their arch-persecutor ; and M. de 
Nointel, freed from English opposition, pushed the pro- 
paganda for the " union " of the Churches without 
scruple, though also without success. The Porte, as we 
have seen, had no reason to love France at that time, 
and the Greek Church had at the Porte a very able 
champion in the person of the Dragoman Panayotis — a 
highly accomplished Greek, who, " having by his parts 
and excellent address arrived to the honour of being 
Interpreter for the Western Tongues to the Great Vizier 
[Ahmed Kuprili], at length obtained that favour with 
his master, that he seldom refused whatsoever he with 
reason and modesty requested." x Being as good a 
patriot and diplomatist as he was a linguist and a mathe- 
matician, Panayotis managed, not only to foil the efforts 
of the Latins to extend their power, but even to oust them 
from the position they had already conquered. The only 
fruit of these French efforts was the production of a fresh 
quantity of theological literature in England as well as on 
the Continent. 2 But though the Greeks did not owe their 
escape from this new storm to English support, they 
enjoyed the passive sympathy of the bulk of English 
Protestants. 

There is no bond like a common hate. Their common 
abhorrence of Popery for ages acted as. a magnet between 

1 Ricaut's Memoirs (1679), 316. 

2 See, for instance, Ricaut's Present State of the Greek and 
Armenian Churches (1678) ; An Account of the Greek Church, 
by Tho. Smith (1680) ; Dr. Covel's Some Account of the present 
Greek Church (compiled during his residence at Constantinople 
as chaplain to the Embassy, 1 670-1 677, though not published till 
shortly before his death in 1722). 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 229 

Greeks and Englishmen. This sentiment found expres- 
sion in a great variety of ways. At Easter, 1600, Master 
Burrell and Master Timberley went on a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem. At the gate they had to obtain official 
permission to enter, and such permission was given only 
to Christians who belonged to either of the recognized 
categories : Greeks and Latins. The Greeks entered 
under the aegis of their Patriarch, the Latins under that 
of a Pater Guardian. Our two pilgrims belonged to 
neither category. Burrell, who spoke Greek fluently, 
did not scruple to describe himself as a Greek, and got in. 
Timberley, " not having the Greeke Tongue," made, 
more Anglico, a virtue of his deficiency, and " refused 
absolutely so to doe ; affirming that I would neither 
deny my Country nor Religion." So, when asked by 
the Turks what he was, he replied " an Englishman." 
The Turks had never heard of such a creature — " they did 
all denie that they had heard either of my Queene or 
Country." The Catholic Pater Guardian offered to take 
him under his protection. The Englishman said he 
would rather be protected under the Turk than under a 
Papist. The Guardian then whispered to the Turks 
that Timberley was a spy, and the Turks duly threw him 
into a dungeon. Presently he was offered his liberty } 
through the intercession of a friendly Moor, on condition 
that he should go to the Latin convent. The Englishman 
still preferred the Turkish prison, until he was assured 
that he would not have to attend Mass — only hold a wax 
candle. On those terms he went, after paying " the 
charges of the prison." But even then he hesitated 
to partake of the food the Pater Guardian gave him, 
" for fear of poyson." x Next year we hear of another 
English pilgrim arriving at Jerusalem with " Letters of 
1 Purchas, ix. 487 foil. 



230 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

favour " from the Patriarch of Constantinople to the 
local Patriarch, who treated him as an honoured guest, 
and had him personally conducted to all the sacred 
sites. 1 Even without such recommendations, English 
travellers invariably met with a hearty welcome from the 
Greeks, and often found them very good friends in need. 
We mentioned in an earlier part of this book William 
Lithgow who had been most pitifully drubbed by some 
Turks in Cyprus, and left lying on the road " almost for 
dead." He goes on to inform us that " if it had not been 
for some compassionate Greeks, who by accident came 
by and relieved me, I had (doubtless) immediately per- 
ished." 2 It would be easy and tiresome to multiply 
instances. 

It is amusing to see this regard for the Greeks oozing 
out of the pages of old English writers in quaint little 
remarks. One of them notes : " They compute the yeare 
as we doe." 3 Another observes that their priests are 
"all maryed." 4 A third is impressed by the ascetic 
frugality of their monks : " These Greek friars are very 
continent and chaste, and surely I have seldom seen 
(which I have well noted) any of them fat." 5 

Unfavourable verdicts are not wanting — even from 
those who, for one reason or another, befriended the 
Greeks ; and the whole race was often condemned for 
the misdeeds of individuals. Archbishop Abbot, when 
disappointed in one of his proteges, reflects bitterly on 
" the baseness and slavishness of that nation." Sir 
Thomas Roe, under similar provocation, breaks out into 
most undiplomatic language : " The truth is they are 
futilissima natio. Long slavery hath made them for the 

1 Purchas, ix. 482. 2 Ibid. x. 478. 

3 George Sandys, in Purchas, viii. 169. 

4 John Covel, Diary, 157. 

5 John Locke, in Hakluyt, v. 98. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 231 

most part liars, base, and treacherous." 1 Sir Paul Ricaut 
speaks of "fides Graeca, or the honesty of a Greek." 2 
The Rev. Dr. Covel composes a whole homily on the same 
text : " Believe me, Greeks are Greeks still : for falseness 
and treachery they still deserve Iphigenia's character of 
them in Euripides : Trust them and hang them, or rather 
hang them first for sureness." 3 But, in the period with 
which we are dealing, such ebullitions of ill-humour were 
exceptional. The general tone was friendly. Now and 
then we hear even of Englishmen carrying their apprecia- 
tion to the length of conversion. Such was the case of 
an English Consul at Patras who, towards the end of the 
sixteenth century, caused the Greek priests to baptize 
him, and when asked by an astonished fellow-countryman 
what induced him to take that step, he replied that " as 
he had lived in credit amongst those Greeks, so his pur- 
pose was to be carried to his grave with credit." 4 

This community of sentiment and interest helped to 
overcome the Englishman's national conceit — a conceit 
not inferior in its dimensions to the Turk's ; 5 and the 
English in the Levant, cut off from home by distance 
and from other Franks by religious prejudice, made a 
practice of taking Greek wives. These ladies adhered 
to their own Church after their marriage, and the chil- 
dren, where no English chaplain was available, were 
baptized according to the rites of the same Church. The 
sons were educated in England, but the daughters — 

1 Abbot to Roe, Aug. 12, 1623 ; Roe to Abbot, Feb. 12, 1625 
( = 6) : Negotiations, 172, 488. 

2 Memoirs, 172. 3 Diary, 133. 

4 John Sanderson, in Purchas, ix. 427. 

5 Bishop Burnet described this trait in words almost identical 
with those which Thevenot applied to the contemporary Turks '. 
" The English who are too apt to despise all other nations and to 
overvalue themselves." Burnet MS. Harl. 6584, in Macaulay's 
History of England, ch. xviii. 



232 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

education being considered unnecessary, if not unsuitable, 
to the feminine mind — often could speak only Greek. 
As to their mode of living, the Anglo-Levantine families 
in those days generally adapted themselves to the habits 
of Greek society. 1 

To this chapter of Anglo-Greek relations belongs an 
episode of more than local interest. Whilst Consul at 
Algiers, James Bruce came across a Greek priest and 
took him to his house as his chaplain. They got on very 
well together. The priest found in the Consul a culti- 
vated gentleman, and the Consul in the priest a tutor in 
spoken Greek. The connexion was to prove of the 
utmost value to the celebrated explorer. It all came 
about as things do in Eastern tales. Father Christopher, 
when Bruce left Algiers, finding himself less conveniently 
situated, went to Alexandria, where he was promoted to 
the highest ecclesiastical dignity under that of Patriarch. 
There Bruce met him again by chance in '1768, when he 
was preparing to start on his great expedition. Father 
Christopher saw an opportunity of repaying the ex-Consul 
for his kindness, and seized it. There were then in 
Abyssinia many Greeks, some of them occupying the 
highest places in the Government of that Empire. Father 
Christopher got the Patriarch of Alexandria to provide 
Bruce with letters to those adventurers, in which he 
enjoined them to concur, heart and hand, in serving the 
traveller. It was essential for his purpose that Bruce 
should pose before the Emperor of Abyssinia as a very 
great man. The Greek magnates were therefore ordered 
by the Patriarch " to lay aside their pride and vanity, 
great sins with which he knew them much infected," and, 
before it could be supposed that they had received any 

1 See Richard Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor (1775), ch. 
xix. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 233 

instructions from the Englishman, to declare to the 
Emperor that they were hardly fit to black his boots. 
This they were to do as a sort of penance, and if they 
did it, all their past sins would be forgiven. This Patri- 
archal Bull, faithfully obeyed by the pious sinners, Bruce 
states, contributed to the success of his work more 
than any other help he received throughout his historic 
journey. 1 

The episode may serve as an appropriate tail-piece. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century England's 
foreign policy had undergone an evolution fatal to Anglo- 
Greek friendship. Doctrine had ceased to be the main- 
spring of European diplomacy, and new groupings of 
the Powers in the West had altered the perspective of 
English statesmanship in the East. The Greek Church, 
it is true, continued to exercise a curious fascination over 
a certain school of Anglican theologians. But the very 
antiquity and formalism that attracted reactionary 
divines to the Eastern Church repelled from it good Pro- 
testants : these had long since lost their hopes of moving 
that hoary institution from its traditional moorings ; 
and, after all, it is these worshippers of the living present, 
not the academic admirers of a picturesque yesterday, who 
represent modern England. By that time, too, the fear 
of Rome, which had acted as a bond between official 
England and the Greeks, was a spent force. The " No 
Popery " cry survived as a mere echo of days gone by. 
This change of attitude was symbolized by, and syn- 
chronized with, a change in the Calendar. While the 
Greeks still adhered to the Old Style and would have 
nothing to do with an innovation emanating from the 
Vatican, in 1752 the English Government adopted — much 
to the relief of public record students — the New Style 
1 Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, i. 26, 109-110. 



234 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

which had long been in use among private individuals. 

In the utterances of English diplomatists and journalists 
we find, as we might have expected, abundant illustra- 
tions of this altered point of view. The representative 
of George the Second at the Porte writes of the Greeks 
in a manner which would have made his Elizabethan, 
Jacobean, and Caroline predecessors shudder. Like their 
country, the character of the people seems to him a mass 
of ruins — decayed and deformed fragments of a monu- 
ment once, more or less, noble. Valour, veracity, virility 
— any virtues the race may have once possessed — have 
either vanished totally, or lie buried deep under the 
accumulation of ages of servitude. Of their ancestral 
heritage they retain only the vices. He carries his indict- 
ment back to bygone times and retrospectively con- 
demns the Patriarch Cyril Lucaris for hypocritical 
opportunism — without adducing a scrap of evidence in 
support of his assertion. 1 

Much to the same effect are the comments on the 
Greeks which appeared at the same time in the most 
serious of London periodicals : "a people immersed in a 
corruption of two thousand years, broken by long slavery, 
and sunk through every state of degradation ; whose 
depravity, and total insensibility of condition, were be- 
come proverbial and whose imaginary bravery only 
depended upon their having never seen the face of an 
enemy." 2 

It can hardly be doubted that there must have been 
some special grievance in the minds of those who penned 
and of those who perused these unmeasured tirades. 
The grievance arose from the unfortunate Greek insur- 
rection of which we shall speak in the following chapter. 

1 Porter (1771), 3 I 4~337- 

2 The Annual Register for the Year 1770, 4. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 235 

England's chief interest in Turkey was a commercial 
interest, and the Levant Company was very influential 
in London. Sir James Porter, a servant of the Company 
as much as of the Crown, was particularly keen on the 
invigoration of the Levant trade, then at a very low ebb. x 
Insurrections are bad for trade. 

But that was not all. The Greeks, after making them- 
selves objectionable by their attempt, had made them- 
selves contemptible by its failure. For that failure the 
Russians and not the Greeks were responsible, as we shall 
see. But the close relations between the Cabinets of 
London and Petersburg at that time rendered it expedient 
for English diplomatists and journalists to promulgate a 
version of the facts as favourable to our political friends 
as it was unfair to their hapless dupes. Hence those 
philippics. 

3. Russia and the Greeks 

The concept of Nationality is of comparatively recent 
growth. During the Middle Age Europe knew little or 
nothing of it. This does not mean, of course, that 

1 He began life in a London counting-house, was employed on 
several missions connected with Continental commerce, and when 
he was appointed ambassador at Constantinople, in 1746, he 
says that " one great reason for my cheerfully accepting the 
honour . . . was the hope with which I flattered myself of being 
of some use to the Commerce of my Country " (Letter addressed 
to " the Consul and Factory, Aleppo," from " Pera of Constanti- 
nople, March 23, 1746-7," in S.P. Foreign, Supplementary, No. 
67). During his fifteen years' residence in Turkey he laboured 
energetically to that end ; but the supineness of his countrymen 
defeated all his efforts. The condition in which he left things may 
be judged from a single fact : in 1768 the Parliament had to make 
the Levant Company a grant of ^5,000 — a, sum representing less 
than half of the Company's liabilities at Constantinople alone. 
See John Murray to Lord Shelburne, June 1, 1768. S.P. 
Foreign, Turkey, No. 44. 



236 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

national consciousness was non-existent. Springing as it 
does from a very primitive perception of difference, 
that sentiment is coeval with historic mankind : differ- 
ences of dress, of diet, of language, of complexion, have 
always and everywhere tended to split up the inhabitants 
of the globe into distinct groups or " nations." But the 
feeling was inarticulate and unacknowledged. Peoples 
did not appeal to it to idealize their passions or politicians 
their plans. 

Religion and not race served the purposes of cant, and 
supplied the main lines of cleavage. In the West, all 
Christians called themselves " Catholics " before they 
thought of calling themselves Frenchmen or Spaniards, 
Germans or Englishmen : these were mere family desig- 
nations obscured by that generic name. Likewise in the 
East all Christians were " Orthodox " before they were 
Greeks or Russians, Bulgars, Vlachs, or Serbs. The same 
event which brought the Middle Age to an end in one 
half of Europe perpetuated it in the other. The Ottoman 
conquest sent the legacy of Hellenic twilight abroad, 
leaving its guardians in absolute darkness. Hence, 
long after the creed of Nationality had separated itself 
from the creed of Religion in Occidental politics, in the 
Orient the two sets of ideas continued identified ; and to 
be an Orthodox Christian was almost equivalent to being 
a Greek. Now, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, 
the only Orthodox State that remained was the Ru ssian. 
The result was that the Sultan's Christian subjects 
looked upon the ruler of Muscovy as their Head — their 
" Emperor and Protector " — pretty much as King George's 
Mohammedan subjects look upon the Sultan of Turkey 
as their Caliph. Similar conditions produce similar 
results the world over — as if to prove to the foolish sons 
of men the fundamental oneness of the species which 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 237 

they strive to divide into so many sections by their 
paltry dogmas of religion or race. 

In their attitude towards the Tsar the Greeks of the 
period presented a parallel to the Mohammedans. In 
another of their characteristics they offered an equally 
instructive parallel to the Jews. Man loves to take 
refuge from his misery in his imagination ; and the more 
miserable his present, the wilder h;s expectations from the 
future. The Greek imagination under the impulse of 
suffering ran riot : prophecies of deliverance were nour- 
ished into luxuriance. The monks produced and the 
ignorant masses consumed with avidity predictions in 
essence like the Messianic revelations which have deluded 
the children of Israel for two thousand years. In this 
instance the Redeemer was to come from the North. 
Agathangelos, the titular author of the best known of 
these chimeras, spoke in cryptic yet perfectly intelligible 
terms of " the blond race " which was destined to chase 
" the sons of Hagar " from Europe and to restore the 
Greek Empire to its pristine grandeur. 1 

These expectations lent point and probability to the 
Jesuit accusations of secret correspondence between the 
Patriarch of Constantinople and the Muscovites. 

Russian diplomacy turned Greek credulity to account. 
Its agents from the time of Peter the Great, if not before, 
visited every province of the Sultan's European dominions 
instigating his subjects to rise and establish their vision 
with the help of the Tsar. The day of redemption and 
retribution was at hand : the mighty Muscovite was 
coming to replant the cross on the dome of St. Sophia. 

1 Ricaut (176) found this prophetic spirit rife in 1660, and 
Tournefort (i. 104) in 1700. I found it still lingering among the 
peasants of Macedonia in 1900 : see my Macedonian Folklore, 
116-117. 



238 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

He came, in 1711 ; and his rout on the Pruth confounded 
both him and those who had put their faith in his divine 
mission. The disenchantment, however, was only tem- 
porary. The triumphs of t,he Empress Anne (1 736-1 739) 
made up for Peter's discomfiture. Heaven had but 
deferred the fulfilment of the prophecies. The Greeks 
continued to feed their hopes in Russia. Then the 
Empress Catherine arose with a grandiose scheme which 
was, this time, to bring the ancient promise to fruition. 

During the two or three years preceding the Russo- 
Turkish War of 1 768-1 774 the Tsarina's emissaries were 
busy among the Greeks preparing their minds. The 
Turks were not wholly blind to these intrigues, and when, 
in 1768, they decided to precipitate matters, all their 
Christian subjects throughout the Empire were ordered 
to deliver up their arms, exception being made only 
in favour of the Greek and Armenian merchants 
who were allowed to keep such as were necessary for 
defence in their journeys. This order was received 
with great reluctance and, save near the capital and 
in places where a military force commanded obedience, 
was very little complied with. The Greeks of the Morea, 
in particular, and of several of the islands of the Archipe- 
lago, absolutely refused to part with their arms, and some 
blood was shed in consequence. Such was the state of 
things when, in the winter of 1 769-1 770, Catherine's 
fleet under Alexis Orloff arrived in the Eastern Mediter- 
ranean to give substance to the dream of redemption. 1 

Seldom has the faith of a nation been subjected to a 
more cruel trial than was the faith of the Greeks in 1770. 
At the sight of the Russian flag off their coast, the brave 
and fierce Mainotes fell upon the Turks, sparing them as 

1 See Richard Chandler's Travels in Greece (1765-1766), and 
The Annual Register for the Year 1768, 33. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 239 

little as they had been spared. But instead of the ten 
thousand Russians they had been led to expect, they saw 
only a handful land to assist them, and of the artillery 
which had been promised them there was no sign. They 
allowed themselves, however, to be persuaded that men 
and munitions were coming. The unsubdued high- 
landers of Crete and Klephts from other parts of Greece 
rushed to the assistance of their brethren of Maina. But 
these auxiliaries also were much better furnished with 
prowess than with guns and powder. Nor were the few 
Russian officers who came to lead the ill-organized and 
ill-equipped bands by any means equal to their task. 

Three thousand half-armed Greeks, commanded by 
half a dozen incompetent Russian officers, and no artil- 
lery : such were the forces that were to overthrow the 
Ottoman Empire ! The population of the Morea were 
overwhelmed with terror at the prospect, and the 
warriors, after a few initial successes, by the Turco- 
Albanian hordes which the Sultan poured into the penin- 
sula. In seven weeks the Liberation of Greece was 
quenched in Greek blood. Catherine's admiral — one of 
the most worthless seamen and men who ever climbed 
to a post of command by the backstairs of Court favour — 
abandoned her dupes to their fate : the boundless and 
inexorable vengeance of their Moslem masters. The 
Greeks had served the Tsarina's purpose by creating a 
diversion to her advantage in the war against Turkey. 
She had no further use for them. Russian historians 
dismiss the episode with the plaintive comment that their 
Government found the Greeks a broken reed. The 
Greeks, with much better reason, complained that they 
had found in the Russians, not deliverers, but heartless 
deceivers and poltroons. 

Fate seemed to have ordained that Russia's successes 



240 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

should be as disastrous to the Greeks as her failures. 
After leaving his allies in the lurch, Orloff pretended to 
seek out his enemies. The rotten Ottoman fleet retired 
before the less rotten Russian fleet, and found shelter in 
the narrow sea that separates the island of Chios from the 
coast of Smyrna, anchoring in the Bay of Chesme. Orloff 
was quite incapable of profiting by the trap into which the 
Capitan Pasha had let himself. But he had among his 
subordinates three intrepid Britons : Elphinstone, Gregg, 
and Dugdale. This trio took matters into their own 
hands, and one dark night they made a bonfire of the 
Sultan's galleys. 

Even then — when the way had been cleared for him — 
Catherine's phantom admiral refused to move in any 
direction. The Sultan's governors of Caramania, very 
seldom loyal to their master, were then in actual rebellion 
a great part of Syria was also up in arms, while Ali Bey of 
Egypt wished for nothing so much as to contribute his 
part to the work of rending the Ottoman Empire to 
pieces. The prize for which the Petersburg Cabinet 
had been labouring for generations was within its grasp. 
Orloff had only to shake the tree, and the Empire of the 
East must have fallen into Catherine's lap. Never had 
such a chance offered itself to Russian ambition. " But," 
as a shrewd observer then in Egypt noted, " never was 
there an expedition where the officers were less instructed 
from the Cabinet, more ignorant of the countries, more 
given to useless parade, or more intoxicated with pleasure, 
than the Russians on the Mediterranean then were." 1 

Meantime that British bonfire afloat had kindled a 

worse conflagration ashore. While the infuriated Moslem 

populace of Stambul was barely restrained from murdering 

the Russian and the other Christian ambassadors, the 

1 James Bruce, Travels, i. 104. 



GREECE AND THE POWERS 241 

mob of Smyrna, maddened with hate and fear, massacred 
all the Greeks they met in the streets. Similar assaults 
occurred in other cities of the Empire, while the ill-starred 
inhabitants of the Morea found themselves exposed to the 
merciless brutality of the Turco-Albanians for ten whole 
years. 

In the peace which the Tsarina concluded with the 
Sultan no provision whatever was made for her allies. 

Such was the end of this Russian effort for the Libera- 
tion of the Greeks : 

Lone, lost, abandon 'd in their utmost need 

By Christians unto whom they gave their creed, 

they were left to ruminate on the ways of diplomacy. 

But popular superstitions die hard. Despite their 
terrible lesson, many Greeks continued to flatter them- 
selves with hopes that the ruler of the " blond race " would 
one day destroy the House of Osman and free them from 
servitude. Encouraged by Catherine's agents and exas- 
perated by their sufferings, the inhabitants of the Morea 
were once more tempted to rise in 1780 ; and Catherine, 
by sending her fleet again into the Mediterranean, renewed 
the delusive prospect of succour. But again the promise 
proved empty, and the Turks renewed their oppression. 
The faith of most Greeks broke down under these 
repeated desertions. Muscovite assurances had been 
touched and found base metal. The ruler of Russia was, 
indeed, an instrument of the divine vengeance, but in a 
totally different sense. 

In the next Russo-Turkish War (1788-1792) the great 
body of the Greek people refused to let themselves be 
massacred to oblige Catherine, and she transferred her 
intrigues from Greece proper to Epirus and the Archipe- 
lago . The Souliotes and some of the islanders were induced 



242 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

to revolt, and were, as usual, left to pay for their credu- 
lity. 

Yet even then the faith in Russia did not wholly die 
out of the Greek heart, Libenter enim homines id quod 
volunt credunt. 1 

1 For a full account of Russia's dealings with Greece at this 
period see Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution (1832), i. ; and 
Finlay's Greece under Ottoman and Venetian Dominion (1856) — a 
confused and splenetic but suggestive work. 



Chapter II 

RENASCENCE 

NOTWITHSTANDING all adverse circumstances, 
and, as it were, in contradiction of the universal 
opinion concerning its debility, the Greek race had 
managed not only to survive, but even to recuperate. 
As in the Hebrew, so in the Hellene, there is a power of 
resilience which, if it does not save him from the degrading 
effects of oppression, saves him from sinking permanently 
under its weight. To this inherent vitality must primarily 
be ascribed the apparent miracle of the modern Greek 
renascence. But circumstances contributed to it. 

The Moslem conquerors had neglected to establish 
their power on a lasting basis by the conversion of all their 
Christian subjects, preferring to reduce them to the 
position of helots. 1 The unstatesmanlike tolerance of 
the rulers was to prove in the long run the national salva- 

1 The original conquerors do not seem to have been unmindful 
of this necessary condition for the stability of Ottoman rule in 
Europe, only to a violent conversion of the Christians (which, for 
the rest, was forbidden by the Koran) they wisely preferred their 
gradual absorption. This, at least, is a fair inference from the 
Turkish law which allowed the continuance and repair of such 
churches as were found standing at the conquest, but not the 
erection of new ones or the restoration of those which, through 
age, fire, or some other accident, fell to ruin. But the object 
of the legislator was defeated by the venality of the adminis- 
trator. For instance, many churches perished in the great fires 
which devastated Constantinople in 1660, and the Grand Vizier, 

243 



244 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tion of the rayahs : the rather because these despised 
drudges were endowed with gifts of intelligence and 
industry to which their haughty masters could lay no 
claim. The ecclesiastical and communal autonomy they 
enjoyed under the political tyranny of the Sultans pre- 
served the national existence of the Greeks and fostered 
in them both the desire and the capacity for emancipation. 
Other favourable conditions, negative and positive, 
were by degrees added to this fundamental advantage. 
By the middle of the seventeenth century the infamous 
child-tribute, by which the earlier Sultans replenished 
the ranks of their military and civil service, had ceased : 
Greek blood and Greek brain no longer went to fertilize 
an alien field, and the Greeks thenceforth were able to 
climb to power without renouncing their faith. The 
Turks, conscious and even proud of their intellectual 
limitations, were prompt to employ their clever slaves 
for the conduct of negotiations with foreign Governments 
and for the administration of vassal principalities. At 
this epoch (1666) they inaugurated the custom of entrust- 
ing diplomatic transactions to unconverted Greeks who, 
mere interpreters in name, were in reality the Sultan's 
Ministers for Foreign Affairs. Greek officials were 



in accordance with the law, issued an edict forbidding the Greeks 
to rebuild them. But the Maimar-bashi, or Chief of the Carpen- 
ters and Masons, connived at their restoration under the guise 
of dwellings and warehouses. On discovering the fraud the Vizier 
caused that corrupt functionary to be strangled (in his house were 
found 500,000 — according to others, 1,000,000 — dollars in ready 
money) and the Greek builders to be beaten and imprisoned. 
He also ordered the churches to be levelled to the ground, and the 
ground on which they stood to be confiscated. But again cupid- 
ity prevailed over policy (contemporary writers call it bigotry), 
and most of the sacred edifices, though unroofed, were redeemed 
by money. See Lord Winchilsea to Secretary Nicholas, May 20, 
1662, in S.P. Foreign, Turkey, No. 19 ; Ricaut's Memoirs, 105, 
106. 



RENASCENCE 245 

likewise sent to govern Wallachia and Moldavia as 
viceroys. Needless to say that round each Dragoman 
and Hospodar clustered a whole court of assistants and 
hangers-on. From that time a new aristocracy arose to 
take the place of the old Byzantine nobility which the 
Conqueror had destroyed or dispersed : the Phanariotes, 
so called from the quarter of Constantinople (Phanari) in 
which they dwelt. In that quarter the Patriarch also had 
his seat, which in a manner formed a centre of Greek 
society analogous to that supplied in former days by the 
Imperial Palace. Whatever the foibles of these mag- 
nates may have been — and Western writers have not 
spared them criticism — their virtues, as a class, were 
not less notable. Inspired by the Hellenic love of culture 
and liberty, they combined with the ecclesiastical grandees 
— another much-maligned and not impeccant class — to 
take the lead in that intellectual improvement which was 
to prepare the way for the national awakening of the 
Greek race. Cyril Lucaris's educational exertions marked 
the start of this pioneer work ; and the Turks were 
certainly not wrong in regarding Metaxa's printing-press 
with suspicion. Age after age the educational movement 
went on, slowly, silently, and irresistibly like the action 
of a subterranean stream, sapping the foundations of the 
Ottoman rule and feeding the mental vigour of the Greek 
rayah. 

A process of enrichment went on side by side with the 
process of enlightenment ; and the spiritual forces of 
Hellenism were strengthened by the growth of its material 
resources. The Turks, content to batten on the sweat 
of their slaves' brows, had from the first left commerce 
almost entirely in the hands of the giaours. The mer- 
cantile genius of the Hellene, always alert, seized every 
opportunity for asserting itself. External events were 



246 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

skilfully utilized for the furtherance of this internal 
development. The Greek sought protection for his 
commercial activity wherever he could find such — under 
the flags of Venice, of France, of England, and, above 
all, of Russia. 1 Indeed — so whimsical is the agency that 
presides over human affairs — the very checks which the 
Hellenic cause owed to Russia's self-interested interfer- 
ence ultimately redounded to its advancement. The 
intrigues of the Tsars and Tsarinas, on one hand, did 
much harm to the Greeks, first by diverting their moral 
energies and their material resources from the steady 
pursuit of solid social progress to the premature chase of 
national ideals ; and secondly by drawing down upon 
them the vengeance of the Turks. But, on the other 
hand, every blow the Russian arms dealt at the Ottoman 
power was a blow struck, inevitably, to the benefit of 
Greek freedom. 

The Russo-Turkish fiscal agreements about the Danu- 
bian principalities which resulted from the Peace of 
Belgrade (1739) contributed very largely to the increase 
of Greek prosperity in Wallachia and Moldavia. Even 
the calamities consequent on the abortive rising of 1770 
formed no exception to this series of lucky accidents. 
By that war Catherine had relaxed still more the Ottoman 
grip on the Near East, and by the treaty that ensued she 

1 Every European ambassador was presented by the Sultan 
with fifty " Patents of Protection " (barats), the value of which 
varied according to the would-be protege's means. Under the 
shelter of these patents, the recipients (baratlis) — wealthy Greeks 
Armenians, or Jews — were enabled to carry on their trades or 
professions in comparative security from the pashas' rapacity, 
and the fees which they paid to their protector formed an import- 
ant item in his Excellency's budget. See Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu to Mrs. Sarah Chiswell, April 1, O.S., 1717 ; Memoir 
of Sir James Porter by Sir George Larpent, in Turkey ; its History 
and Progress (1854), i, 6 ; Cp. Volney's Travels, 513. 



RENASCENCE 247 

obtained concessions which were to prove as profitable 
to the Hellenes as they were to herself. From the moment 
the Sultan's seas were thrown open to Russian navigation 
and his ports to Russian Consuls, the Petersburg Cabinet, 
steadfast in its subversive policy, hastened to extend 
these privileges to any Greek who chose to become a 
Russian subject. Thus Greek vessels sailed under the 
Russian flag, and Greek traders were employed as Russian 
Consuls : to the vast advantage of Hellenic commercial 
enterprise and — what eventually proved of particular 
importance — maritime power. 

Remoter upheavals conduced later on to the same end. 
The obstacles raised to the commerce of Europe by the 
Continental System which Napoleon imposed during the 
last ten years of his reign, while creating an extreme 
scarcity of colonial produce in the centre of the Continent, 
had the natural effect of stimulating commercial activity 
on the periphery. New channels of trade had to be 
found, and central Europe received by the round-about 
way of Greece the goods it could no longer obtain directly 
through the Western ports. The islanders of the Archi- 
pelago, who already engrossed the whole coasting trade 
of the Levant, reaped enormous profits and their ship- 
ping received an immense increase. 1 

Meanwhile education proceeded apace. The Phana- 
riotes and other leaders of the nation redoubled their 
efforts. They founded new schools in the East, subsidized 
poor scholars in the universities of the West, facilitated 
the production of books, and, in brief, within the measure 
of their opportunities, bore in the Greek renascence the 
part which the Medici had borne in the Italian Ranais- 
sance. Before the close of the eighteenth century every 
important town in Greece had its educated class, its 
1 See Holland, 323-328. 



248 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

scientists, its men of letters ; and the latest speculations 
of Occidental philosophy were eagerly discussed by acute 
Greek intellects. x It is true that among the Greeks there 
was no revival of paganism. But nevertheless secular 
culture gradually supplanted, to some extent, in their 
minds the older religious influences. It taught them to 
think of Hellenism rather than of Orthodoxy as a bond of 
union and a fountain of inspiration : in one word, it 
nursed among them the true spirit of nationality. The 
members of the Society of Philomuses, which directed 
the educational propaganda throughout the Ottoman 
Empire, were animated by a double enthusiasm : en- 
thusiasm for the Fatherland (Patris) as well as for the 
Faith (Pistis). The result of their efforts was to instil 
into the Greeks a strong sentiment of pride and shame, 
pride in the ancient glories of their race ; shame for its 
actual condition. 

In the midst of this psychological ferment came a 
great impulse from without : the fall of the French 
Monarchy. Coming as it did at a time when the tide of 
religion had ebbed and men turned from ecclesiastical 
formalism to become sceptics, it kindled everywhere a 
new flame of hope, an exaltation, and a confidence 
scarcely known at any other period. One tyranny had 
fallen and others were trembling with the shock. The 
Day of Freedom had dawned. The revolutionary song 
of the French was a trumpet call to the Greeks, as to all 
down-trodden nations the world over, to rise and claim 
their rights as men. From 1789 the educational propa- 
ganda assumed a more distinctly political aspect ; and 
the Society of the Philomuses was merged in the Friendly 

1 Very striking instances -will be found in nearly every chapter 
of Holland's work, and in Byron's Appendix to Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage, Canto II. 



RENASCENCE 249 

Society {Philike Hetairia) — a secret revolutionary or- 
ganization with roots in Constantinople itself and ramifi- 
cations reaching to every city in Europe where Greeks 
were to be found : from Odessa, Moscow, and Peters- 
burg in the East, as far as Venice, Vienna, Paris, and 
London in the West. In every town, village, and glen 
of Greece the people were dreaming of the Day, and de- 
bating schemes of deliverance. 

The Hellenic hope found its prophet in the great 
patriot-poet Rhigas of Pherae (Velestino). On the first 
burst of the French Revolution this Thessalian idealist 
joined himself to other young patriots and went to and 
fro, spurring the bold and encouraging the timid by his 
minstrelsy. His war song, " Sons of the Hellenes, 
arise ! " has been made familiar to English readers through 
Byron's spirited translation. The poet, by the treachery 
of a Great Christian Power, fell into the hands of the 
Turks, who after vainly trying to torture out of him the 
names of his confederates, put him to death at Belgrade 
in 1798. But they could not put to death his memory 
or his message. Even young women sang his martial 
ballads in preference to love ditties. 1 

***** 

However, confidently though the Greeks spoke of the 
day — not very distant — which would not only restore 
them to freedom, but even to that cultural pre-eminence 
which their country enjoyed twenty centuries before, 
they were shrewd enough to perceive that this glorious 
dream could not be realized by their own unaided efforts. 
The Ottoman Empire, even in its senility, was far too 
strong for them. Indeed, it was clear to most Greeks 
that, without foreign assistance, they had as small a 
chance of redemption from the Turks as the Jews had 
1 See Holland, 323, 350. 



250 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

from the Gentiles. The Deliverer had to come from 
outside. But whence ? 

The masses, swayed by religious rather than by national 
sentiment, still kept their eyes turned towards Russia. 
Old habits of thought, inherited through many genera- 
tions of pious ancestors, prevailed over recent experience ; 
and, while the dreadful disappointment they had received 
in the Morea was not forgotten, nothing could destroy the 
conviction that the Messiah was to come out of Muscovy. 

Among the educated classes other opinions were 
current. Literary Greeks, familiar with the radical 
changes that had come over France, had emancipated 
themselves from the distrust of the French which cen- 
turies of ill-usage had produced in their minds, and they 
clung to the idea of liberation through the aid of the 
nation which was so emphatically preaching the gospel 
of Liberty. Many mercantile Greeks also, mostly be- 
longing to the mainland, though less affected by the 
theories of French writers, were very deeply impressed 
by the military exploits of the French arms, and expected 
more from the political ambition of Napoleon than from 
the idealism of his compatriots. Lastly, the islanders 
and the inhabitants of the Morea, seeing England's 
growing influence in the Mediterranean, looked to her 
navy as the most probable instrument of deliverance. 
Such were the three schools of Greek thought regarding 
the European Powers at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. Their would-be deliverers were not less divided 
in opinion about them and their dreams. 

Of the Russians very little need be said at this stage. 
The bulk of the Russian people knew nothing of Hellenic 
aspirations, but only of Orthodox Christians suffering 
under an infidel yoke. To them the problem presented 
itself as a matter of Religion pure and simple. Had they 



RENASCENCE 251 

been capable of understanding the part which ancient 
Hellas played in the unrest of the modern Greeks, they 
would have anathematized it with horror as a heathen 
influence. For the rest, few Russians had any first- 
hand knowledge of Greece. There were neither resident 
merchants nor transient tourists from Russia in the 
towns of the Levant ; and the intercourse between the 
two nations was chiefly confined to the Greek commercial 
colonies in the dominions of the Tsar. 

But of Frenchmen and Englishmen Greece was full ; 
and their respective attitudes towards the Greek people 
and its aspirations must be considered. 

The French residents, as a body, loathed the Greeks 
from the bottom of their hearts as heretics, and feared 
them as commercial rivals. Most of them were survivors 
of the old regime, and, as often happens with communities 
long severed from the mother country, they were out of 
touch with the new spirit that animated France and out of 
sympathy with it. They lived in the traditions of the 
past, and those traditions were hostile to the Greeks. 
These gentlemen loudly affirmed that the Greeks did not 
deserve to be emancipated : they were much too de- 
praved ; they were canaille — just the same canaille that 
existed in the days of Themistocles. When asked to give 
their grounds for this estimate, they turned out to be such 
as the grounds on which a Greek in France might have 
condemned the French nation wholesale — because he 
had been cheated by a servant or overcharged by a shop- 
keeper. 

Not much different was the attitude of the average Eng- 
lish resident. While the older Anglo-Levantine families, 
bound to the Greeks by many ties of blood and tradition, 
identified themselves, more or less, with them, the later 
arrivals held aloof from the natives of the country. , . They 



252 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

were far too conscious of their dignity to risk it by contact 
with mere rayahs. In Constantinople, English merchants 
actually boasted of their little social intercourse with the 
Greeks. This, of course, did not prevent them from 
dogmatizing on the qualities of people whom they only 
saw at a distance ; and their feeling, for the most part, 
was similar to that of their French neighbours : a mixture 
of contempt and jealousy. 

These Englishmen belonged to a different sort of 
England from the England of the Tudors and the Stuarts 
— an England no longer struggling to maintain her own 
independence between the clashing ambitions of mighty 
Empires, but an England that had herself become a 
mighty Empire : an insolent arrive, very little tolerant 
of the pretensions of people " on the make," save where 
those pretensions could be turned to account. It was, 
doubtless, of eighteenth century England that Gibbon was 
thinking when he reflected on the policy of mediaeval 
Venice as " marked by the avarice of a trading, and the 
insolence of a maritime Power." 

Besides, in former days the Englishman's insular 
contempt for foreigners was modified by circumstances, 
which no longer existed. Advance in the art of navigation 
had made it possible for residents in the Levant to keep 
up a much closer connexion with the old country : as the 
journey became shorter and safer, the Englishman abroad 
experienced less the necessity for adaptation to his alien 
environment. Even the older families indulged less in 
intermarriage with the Greeks and were reverting to the 
Western way of living. 1 



1 Compare R. Chandler's remarks in 1764 with those of J. C. 
Hobhouse, A Journey through Albania and other Provinces of 
Turkey in Europe and Asia to Constantinople, During the Years 
1809 and 1810, 621. The change, naturally, was more notable 



RENASCENCE 253 

As was to be expected, the views of the sojourners 
were readily adopted by most visitors — it is easier to get 
opinions ready-made than to form your own. And the 
number of Western visitors to the East had increased 
through the same improvement in the means of communi- 
cation which had widened the chasm between resident 
Franks and native inhabitants. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century Greece swarmed with travellers of all 
the denominations known to Laurence Sterne : idle 
travellers, inquisitive travellers, lying travellers, vain 
travellers, sentimental travellers, splenetic travellers, 
travellers impelled to travel by infirmity of body, im- 
becility of mind, genuine liberal curiosity, archaeological 
faddism, artistic fervour, love of change, or the desire to 
be in the fashion. Armed with pen and pencil, they 
rushed through the length and breadth of the land, and 
then rushed back home to gush in tomes innumerable. 
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Danes and other Europeans 
were to be found among these well-to-do vagrants, but 
the English outnumbered the rest at the rate of ten to one. 
And they, according to their own evidence, met in every 
part of Greece with a reception highly flattering to their 
amour-propre. Something of this regard might be attri- 
buted to the political expectations which the Hellenes 
cherished from the nation which took such a keen interest 
in their ancestors. Another cause, doubtless, was the 
English " milord's " open-handedness. But it arose 
mainly, from the memories of old friendship : the ordinary 
Greek was not in a position to realize the change that 
English policy had undergone, or to know how London 
journalists wrote about him, his country, and his aspira- 
tions. 

in the larger centres, like Constantinople and Smyrna, than in the 
smaller, like Salonica. On the latter see Holland, 312, 322. 



254 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Among the stationary Franks, it has been seen, there 
was hardly any difference in their estimate of the Greek 
character and prospects, though on all other topics they 
disputed with great acrimony. But the itinerant Franks 
displayed no such uniformity of judgment. Despite 
the anti-Hellenic views, so vehemently expounded by 
their Consuls, missionaries, and merchants, there was a 
number of Frenchmen who declined to contemplate 
things through the hazy atmosphere of second-hand 
prejudice ; and under their influence interest in the 
Greeks and their cause — now beginning to get known by 
the name of Philhellenism — became by degrees the mode 
in France. French Republicans could not, without flag- 
rant inconsistency, refuse their sympathy to an illustrious 
country praying for freedom from an intolerable tyranny. 

Not less true was this with regard to English writers. 
Their books can, roughly, be divided into two categories : 
panegyrics and philippics. Some described the Greeks 
as the natural allies of Englishmen, others would not 
allow them to be the allies of anybody. Some waxed 
eloquent on the idea of rehabilitation as it was held by 
the most imaginative Hellenes, others denied their fitness 
even for the most modest degree of independence. The 
admirers in their antique frenzy ignored actualities, 
used hyperbolic phrases, and thus discredited in their 
readers' minds both the cause they pleaded and their 
own sanity. The detractors had just as little respect 
for facts, used scurrilous language, and disgusted their 
readers by their lack of sense of measure and decency. 
Yet, even amidst the din of dissenting zealots, the voice 
of reason made itself heard. There were Englishmen 
clear-sighted enough to see things as they were, and sober 
enough to draw from them deductions to which Time, 
the best of judges, has given value. 



RENASCENCE 255 

Two^ such conclusions, arrived at after a dispassionate 
examination of the facts, are eminently worth reproducing 
a hundred years after — 

"The traveller in Greece, noticing those particular 
vices of character which are always the consequence 
of slavery, and contrasting them with the temper of the 
ancient Greeks, might be apt to believe that their regen- 
eration was impossible, and that political change in this 
country would be but the transference of submission. 
To such an opinion I cannot, from my own observations, 
give assent. I certainly am far from believing that the 
ancient Greeks, with all their peculiarities of national 
spirit and usage, will be revived in the people who now 
inhabit this country. The race has undergone many 
changes — the condition of the surrounding world still 
more. But this belief is by no means necessary to the 
question ; and it still remains a matter of interesting 
speculation whether a nation may not be created in this 
part of Europe, either through its own or foreign efforts, 
which may be capable of bearing a part in all the affairs 
and events of the civilized world. Were the question 
proposed to me as one of probability, I should be disposed 
to answer in the affirmative." 

With these words the distinguished physician Sir 
Henry Holland ends his work. Almost identical 
views were expressed about a year before by the dis- 
tinguished poet Byron, who, at that time, was anything 
but a Philhellene — 

" To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising 
again to their pristine superiority, would be ridiculous ; 
as the rest of the world must resume its barbarism after 
reasserting the sovereignty of Greece. But there seems 
to be no very great obstacle, except in the apathy of the 



256 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Franks, to their becoming a useful dependency, or even a 
free state with a proper guarantee." 

Turning from private individuals to the public men 
of Europe, we find that they were not wholly indifferent 
to the Hellenic movement. Napoleon in his interview 
with the Tsar at Tilsit (1807) had discussed the partition 
of the Ottoman Empire, and an arrangement was out- 
lined by which, while the Danubian Principalities and 
Bulgaria were allotted to Russia, and Bosnia and Servia 
to Austria, Albania, Epirus, Macedonia, and Greece 
were to be his share in the plunder. He was also believed 
to have offered to Ali Pasha, the satrap of Epirus who en- 
tertained thoughts of independent sovereignty, to make 
him King of Greece, if Ali would engage to second the 
designs of France. But these French schemes materialized 
only in the occupation of the Ionian Islands (1807). 
These islands — scattered along the coast from Epirus 
to the extreme south of the Morea — had had a most 
adventurous history since the destruction of the Venetian 
Signoria from whose corrupt and oppressive rule they 
had suffered for centuries. In 1797 they passed, by 
the Treaty of Campo Formio, under the sway of France. 
In 1 801, by an agreement between Russia and Turkey, 
they were constituted into a distinct State, autonomous 
though tributary to the Porte, under the name of " The 
Republic of the Seven Isles" (Heptannesos) . The 
independence and integrity of the scattered common- 
wealth was subsequently ratified by England and France 
in the Treaty of Amiens. By the Treaty of Tilsit, how- 
ever, it was handed over to Napoleon and garrisoned by 
French troops. During his domination Napoleon made 
an effort to establish intimate relations with a people 
which was beginning to figure in European politics, and 



RENASCENCE 257 

to which future events might give much greater weight 
in the balance of European power. His administration 
granted a certain measure of legislative freedom to 
the Ionians, and planned to restore various customs of 
the ancient Greeks. The reckoning by Olympiads was 
to be revived, Olympic games were to be celebrated at 
each period of four years, and iron medals to be dis- 
tributed as prizes. These projects looked very imposing 
in the columns of the Moniteur ; but their effect on the 
minds of the Greeks was soon obliterated by occurrences 
which compelled the versatile Ionian community to 
undergo yet another metamorphosis. 

Early in 1810 a small English expedition left Sicily, 
under the command of General Oswald, and seized 
Zante, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Leucas, and Cerigo. Corfu 
and the adjoining little isle of Paxos alone remained 
in French hands. The other five were turned into a 
British protectorate, under the style of " The Liberated 
Ionian Isles," with Zante for its capital. The British 
Government, prompted by the same political calculations 
as its predecessor, tried to earn the esteem of the popula- 
tion by removing some of the ancient administrative 
abuses, by building roads, developing commerce, putting 
down crime ; and to conciliate its goodwill by paying 
great deference to its institutions and aspirations. The 
men of the English garrison were made to take part in 
the religious processions of the Greek Church, each hold- 
ing a lighted candle ; while the men of the local Greek 
militia, consisting mostly of natives of the Morea, were 
decked out in a hybrid costume — a Greek kilt under an 
English tunic, the scarlet colour of which was supposed 
to be agreeably reminiscent of the military garb of 
ancient Sparta. 1 

1 Holland, ch. ii. 



258 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

This policy had the desired effect. For some years 
the utmost harmony prevailed between the Protectors 
and their proteges, and everything seemed to point to 
even closer relations in the future. By a new inter- 
national agreement signed in 1814, the French were 
expelled from the Ionian Sea altogether, and the Seven 
Islands were united into one free commonwealth under 
the exclusive protection of Great Britain. Unfortu- 
nately, the act that promised to tighten the bonds of 
Anglo-Greek amity, and to make England supreme in 
the affections of the Hellenes, was immediately followed 
by one which held the seeds of fatal discord. 

On the coast of Epirus, opposite Paxos, there stood 
Parga — a prosperous Greek township which had long 
been considered a dependency of the Ionian State, and 
from 1807 till 1 814 had been garrisoned by French 
troops. On the transference of the islands to England, 
the French garrison was replaced by a British, and the 
inhabitants took the oath of allegiance to the British 
Crown. The Treaty of 181 5, however, while settling 
the destinies of the rest of the world, made no mention 
of Parga : the representatives of the Great Powers 
at the Congress of Vienna had either forgotten the exist- 
ence of the little town or, which is more likely, inten- 
tionally sacrificed it to diplomatic exigencies. There is 
nothing very surprising about this. For those Powers — 
Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia — after 
bleeding the peoples of Europe for twenty years under 
the pretext of freeing them from French militarism, 
met at Vienna to cut them up and barter them away 
with a callous disregard of their wishes which gave to 
the Congress all the appearance of a meeting of stock- 
brokers trafficking in nations. Among other things, 
the Treaty stipulated for the retrocession of the Adriatic 



RENASCENCE 259 

mainland to Turkey, without any qualification or reserva- 
tion. Consequently the Porte demanded Parga as part 
of the mainland, and Ali Pasha was especially eager to 
get its industrious and thriving population within his 
rapacious grasp. 

It is not difficult to imagine the feelings with which 
the people of Parga heard the news. They had joyfully 
sworn allegiance to England, and had deemed themselves 
perfectly safe under her flag : and now ! In great alarm 
they implored the commander of the British garrison 
not to deliver them up to their worst enemy ; but that 
officer could do no more than promise — in the name of 
the Governor of the Ionian State — that adequate pro- 
vision should be made for their safety and compensation : 
any citizens who might choose to emigrate would receive 
from the Sultan value for their property, and from 
the British authorities a free passage to Corfu. They 
answered, with one voice, that they would all emi- 
grate : they could not leave even the bones of their fathers 
at the mercy of the Turco-Albanians. 

After haggling for three years, the Turkish Government 
was induced to pay one-third of the sum which the British 
estimate had fixed ; and, in June, 181 9, the Governor 
of the Ionian Islands gave notice to the inhabitants of 
Parga that he was ready to provide for their transporta- 
tion. Thereupon every family marched out of its home. 
The procession, led by the priests, went first to the 
cemetery. Without tears or wails, but with the delibera- 
tion of utter despair, they unearthed the dead, and 
placing them on a pile of wood, set fire to it. While 
this funereal ceremony was in progress, some of Ali's 
troops, impatient for rapine, approached the gates of 
the town. The citizens sent a deputation to the English 
commander of the garrison to inform him that, if a single 



a6o TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

infidel was admitted before the remains of their ancestors 
were secured from profanation and themselves with their 
families safely embarked, they would slay their wives 
and children and die with their arms in their hands, 
after taking a bloody revenge on those who had bought 
and sold their country. 

The remonstrance was successful. The march of the 
Moslems was arrested, the pyre burnt out, and the 
people embarked in dead silence. 

A scene so poignant and, in modern times, so unusual 
created, as well it might, the most profound sensation in 
Europe. The English Opposition denounced in both 
Houses the action of the Government in ceding Parga 
and condemning to expatriation its unfortunate inhabi- 
tants who had, in trusting sincerity, taken the oath of 
fidelity to the English Crown, as a breach of national 
faith and as an indelible stigma on English honour. The 
Government, in justification of its conduct, pleaded the 
letter of the Treaty ; and the verdict of posterity must 
depend on the jury's point of view. Lawyers will doubt- 
less acquit England, moralists may have a somewhat 
different opinion. In any case, the Parliamentary 
protest came too late. Parga had been given up to its 
oppressors ; its citizens, like the Athenians in the days 
of Xerxes, had fled ; and the prestige of England in the 
Hellenic world suffered a blow from which it never quite 
recovered. The surrender of Parga was a sin for which, 
in the opinion of the great majority of Greeks, no lip- 
service could compensate, and which no time could con- 
sign to oblivion. 1 

In this way the Hellenic ship with its freight of hopes 
and fears was buffeted to and fro between France and 

1 See The Annual Register for the Year 1819, 194-195 ; and Sir 
Archibald Alison's History of Europe (1815-52), iii. 86-89. 



RENASCENCE 261 

England from 1797 till 1821. But it was to Russia 
that the Greeks at that critical period of their national 
fortunes owed the greatest grudge. Her agents were, as 
usual, everywhere, encouraging them with promises of 
succour. Moreover, in the Tsar's own immediate circle 
there were Greeks intimately connected with the revolu- 
tionary movement. The most important of these was 
Count John Capodistrias, a native of Corfu, who had 
joined the Russian diplomatic service when the Ionian 
Islands were ceded to France, by the Treaty of Tilsit, 
and the partition of the Ottoman Empire brought within 
the range of practical discussion. In this Greek noble- 
man the Emperor Alexander had found an ardent sym- 
pathizer both with the political liberalism and with the 
religious sentimentalism which marked the earlier phase 
of his futile life, and had made him his Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs. Capodistrias was a prominent member 
of the Philike Hetairia. And that was not all. The 
very President of that organization, the Phanariote 
Prince Alexander Ypsilantis, was aide-de-camp to the 
Tsar and stood high in his favour. Could the Greeks 
doubt that in the ruler of Russia they had, this time at 
least, a sincere ally ? 

The expectations of Greek patriots appeared to re- 
ceive absolute confirmation when on March 8, 1821, 
Prince Ypsilantis crossed the Pruth from the Russian 
side and raised the standard of revolt in Moldavia, 
proclaiming— in perfect good faith— that the Russian 
Monarch would support the insurrection. But the 
Russian Monarch had, meanwhile, changed what he 
called his mind ; and the reactionary Count Nesselrode, 
who had ousted Capodistrias from the Tsar's councils, 
hastened to declare officially that " His Imperial Majesty 
could not regard the enterprise of Ypsilantis as anything 



262 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

but the effect of the exaltation which characterizes the 
present epoch, as well as of the inexperience and levity 
of a young man, whose name is ordered to be erased 
from the Russian service." 

Emboldened by this unambiguous disavowal, the 
Turks gave rein to their fury. Among other atrocities, 
the octogenarian Patriarch Gregory was seized as he 
finished Mass and hanged in his pontifical robes. Eastern 
Christendom beheld the body of its venerable chief 
dragged through the streets of Stambul and thrown 
into the sea, whence it was rescued by a Greek vessel 
and carried to Odessa. This crime roused a storm of 
horrified anger among the pious Russian masses ; and 
the Tsar, to assuage public feeling, addressed an ultima- 
tum to the Sultan. The Sultan was quite well informed 
enough to take the threat at its true value, and saw with 
perfect equanimity the departure of the Russian Ambassa- 
dor from his capital (July 27, 1821). 

Ypsilantis's " Sacred Legion," discredited and un- 
supported, was soon crushed by the Ottoman armies ; 
and the Government which had twice already deserted 
the Greeks, crowned its duplicity by a third desertion 
baser than all the rest. 1 

The insurrection in Moldavia was speedily extinguished. 
But in the south the gallant chiefs of the Morea carried 
everything before them. All the strength that had been 
gathered during the last half-century was now put forth 
in a determined effort for liberty ; and the nation which 

1 The melancholy story of the Moldavian rising is told at 
length by every historian of the Greek Revolution ; but the 
ordinary English reader will find an adequate account of it in 
Alison, op. cit. iii. 92-97, 107-111. See also the articles on 
Capodistrias and Nesselrode in the Encyclopedia Britannic a 
(9th Ed.), v. and xvii. 



RENASCENCE 263 

had been reviled as brave only in the absence of an 
enemy, displayed of a sudden a capacity for self-sacrifice 
that won it the admiration of the whole world. The 
exploits of the Greek rebels kindled all the warm hearts 
and heads in Europe. Detractors were shamed into 
silence ; sympathizers plumed themselves on their pre- 
science. Byron sang his recantation. In 1813 he had 
written " Tis Greece, but living Greece no more ! " 
{The Giaour). In 1823 he wrote : " Where Greece was — 
No ! she still is Greece once more " {The Age of Bronze). 
And he hastened to participate in the battle for freedom, 
hoping by some dazzling achievement or a clean death 
to regain among his own countrymen the caste he had for- 
feited by his dissolute life. By that time the cause of 
Hellas had become the theme of every Western coterie 
that lay any claim to culture, and for the next few years 
to decry the Greeks was to write oneself down a barbarian. 
But while the peoples of Europe applauded the little 
nation which could summon enough courage to resist 
the might of a great empire, and did what private enthusi- 
asm could do to help it, the Cabinets of Europe left the 
insurgents to sustain the combat by themselves : even 
the awful massacres of Chios failed to evoke any sign of 
compassion from official Christendom. No wonder. 
The dominant note of European diplomacy at the time 
was a note of Conservatism ; through all its proceedings 
there ran the solemn, silly refrain : the status quo must 
be maintained. Even many of those politicians who 
had hailed the French Revolution as the dawn of a new 
era for humanity, had long since lost their illusions. 
The excesses of the champions of liberty had in every 
country frightened from their side some of the most 
ardent liberal statesmen. The rapid conversion of the 
French struggle from a democratic revolt against old 



264 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

despotisms into a despotic campaign for the subjugation 
of Europe had forced these statesmen to make common 
cause with the enemies of popular and national freedom. 
Besides, every Crown had come out of the Napoleonic 
conflict financially exhausted, and not one of them was 
disposed to countenance any movement likely to result 
in another costly conflagration. The autocrats, profiting 
by these conditions, aspired to impose their own ideas 
of government on every part of the world ; and the Holy 
Alliance, inaugurated as a measure of mutual defence 
against the forces of anarchy, soon degenerated into an 
engine of oppression. It was only when its members 
could discern in a national agitation a chance for self- 
aggrandizement that they tolerated it. 

This explains the Emperor Alexander's craven conduct. 
Russia had her own old designs on Turkey, and some 
new grievances against her: alleged infractions of the 
Treaty of Bucharest and so on. The barbarity of the 
Sultan had supplied the Tsar with a moral excuse for 
aggression such as few conquerors have ever had. But, 
on the other hand, the Russian monarch, as a partner in 
the Holy Compact, could not sanction a popular rebellion. 
Nor could he afford, by moving against Turkey, to arouse 
Austria's jealousy. Even if Austria were squared, 
England, who since the latter days of the preceding 
century had grown more and more suspicious of Russia's 
liberating activities, was certain to veto any attempt 
that might imperil the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. 
France, too, was now tenderly solicitous for the balance 
of power. The Tsar, therefore, after instigating the 
insurrection, declined to help the insurgents, though he 
kept an army of 100,000 men ready to invade the Balkan 
Peninsula at any moment. 

Thus for five years the Governments of Europe marked 



RENASCENCE 265 

time ; their attitude, when not actively hostile, being one 
of cold indifference to the struggle of the Hellenes. 

Undaunted by this insensibility of princes, and encour- 
aged by the applause of the peoples, Greece kept up the 
fight single-handed. It would have been an unequal 
fight in any case. It was rendered more unequal still 
by the intestine dissensions of the patriots, which 
consumed a great deal of the energy that should have 
been directed against the common enemy. Neverthe- 
less, the movement possessed that strength which has 
decided more than one unequal conflict in history — 
the strength of the spirit. Time and again the Turkish 
armies were routed on land, and the Turkish fleets were 
burnt at sea. Alternate success and failure attended 
the efforts of the Hellenes ; yet, on the whole, and for 
the first four years, they managed to hold their own. 

At length, however, the Sultan, having come to the 
end of his own resources, called in the aid of his vassal 
Mohammed Ali of Egypt, who had both a fleet and an 
army superior to the Turkish. The reward offered was 
the Morea. The Pasha without delay sent his son 
Ibrahim to conquer the prize, and, in February, 1825, 
the fresh Egyptian troops arrived to relieve the worn-out 
Turks. The odds proved too many for the decimated 
forces of Greece. Unable to meet the invaders in a 
pitched battle, the insurgents had recourse to guerrilla 
tactics. But without avail. Town after town fell into 
the hands of the enemy. From the Morea Ibrahim's 
victorious troops, in 1826, advanced north — against 
Mesolonghi which had been besieged by the Turco- 
Albanians in vain since the spring of the previous year. 
The garrison and the population, now closely invested 
and menaced with famine, attempted to break through 
the cordon. But the Ottoman forces, having got wind 



266 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

of the contemplated sortie, prepared for it. The Greeks — 
soldiers and civilians : old men, women, and children — 
driven back upon the place they had mined, fought with 
the courage of despair, neither demanding nor expecting 
quarter. After most of them had fallen to the Moslem 
sword or been buried beneath the ruins of their houses, 
the remnant took refuge in the powder magazine : the 
Bishop pronounced a benediction, cried out, " Lord, 
remember us ! " and set fire to the powder (April 12, 
1826). 

The noise of that explosion reverberated throughout 
the civilized world. The nations which had watched 
the heroic resistance of Greece with admiration were 
moved to infinite pity by her desperate plight. English, 
French, German, even American, volunteers hurried to 
her assistance, among them Lord Cochrane who took 
command of the Greek fleet, and Sir Richard Church 
who was appointed by the Greeks Generalissimo of their 
land forces. 1 But such assistance, though of great moral 
value, did not suffice. It was clear now that, if left much 
longer to herself, Greece would perish. Public opinion 
everywhere clamoured for intervention. 

Nowhere was this clamour louder than in Russia, 
nor did anywhere the voice of the people coincide so 
accurately with the views of the Government. The 
cautious Alexander had died on the 1st of December, 
1825, and with the accession of Nicholas the Petersburg 
Cabinet adopted a more aggressive attitude towards 
Turkey. The Western Powers saw that, if they remained 

1 After sharing their agony, this gallant soldier remained among 
the Hellenes to share their victory. So late as the 'sixties, he 
was still to be seen at Athens, still holding the honorary rank of 
Generalissimo : a spruce, frock-coated, silk-hatted octogenarian, 
with a coeval kilted aide-de-camp for his inseparable companion. 
See Sir Horace Rumbold's Recollections of a Diplomatist, ii. 148- 
150. 



RENASCENCE 267 

immobile, Russia would move alone, take Constantinople, 
and realize her dream. That would never do. 

England was the first to adjust herself to the new 
turn of events, and the credit for the initiative is due to 
the one English statesman of the day : the versatile 
George Canning. Like many another politician, Canning 
had gone through the various phases of opinion produced 
by the French Revolution. After beginning his political 
career as an enthusiastic Liberal, he had distinguished 
himself as a devoted supporter of Pitt's Conservative 
policy, and on Pitt's death, in 1806, he had continued to 
support the same policy as expounded by Castlereagh. 
If Pitt was an anti-democrat, Castlereagh was a thorough- 
going pro-autocrat : a disciple of Metternich, whose 
opinions on the Greek Question he had endorsed in a 
series of personal interviews in 182 1. 1 As long as Can- 
ning's association with Castlereagh endured, his attitude 
towards Greece was coloured by the same Metternichean 
brush. But in 1822 the two brilliant Irish leaders of 
English Toryism fell out, fought a duel, and parted to 
meet no more. Soon afterwards Castlereagh, in a fit 
of melancholia, cut his own throat, and Canning reverted 
to his original creed. Considering that England had 
gone too far in her subservience to the Holy Alliance 
and its unholy principles, he now came forward with an 
entirely new political programme. He maintained that 
the foreign policy of this country ought to be not Con- 
tinental but universal in scope, and Liberal in spirit : 
it should be based on the maxim that every people has 
an inalienable right to govern itself. 

Canning's progressive ideas were anything but pleasing 
to his reactionary colleagues. But with the removal of 
the French peril the reactionaries had lost much of their 
1 See Metteroiclj's Aittobiography, iii, 550-560, 



268 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

influence over the people of England. At the same time, 
the Russian peril had recovered its old prominence in 
the minds of those responsible for the conduct of Eng- 
land's foreign affairs. Wellington, heartily as he dis- 
liked Canning's disrespectful attitude towards the Holy 
Alliance, and little as he sympathized with his advocacy 
of Greek independence, agreed that in some sort of inter- 
vention lay the best safeguard of British interests. And 
so the English Government, alarmed by Russia's forward 
tendencies, decided to abandon its passivity and, while 
helping to some little extent the liberation of Greece, 
to tie the hands of Russia. Early in 1826 Wellington 
went to Petersburg and proposed to the Tsar a solution 
of the problem which would secure the maximum of 
safety to British interests, by according the minimum 
of satisfaction to Hellenic sentiments. Simultaneously 
English diplomacy worked at Constantinople to the same 
end. 

First of all the Sultan was prevailed upon to submit 
to the Tsar's demands, and the upshot was the Con- 
vention of Ackermann (August, 1826) — a development of 
the Treaty of Bucharest. There followed the Protocol 
of Petersburg (April 4, 1827) by which England and 
Russia agreed that the former should mediate with the 
Porte a settlement of the Greek Question on the basis of 
local self-government : Greece was to administer her 
own affairs, but to remain tributary to the Sultan. No 
sooner was this document signed than the accession of 
Canning to the Premiership drove Wellington from the 
Government. Canning, at last able to pursue his Liberal 
policy unhampered by Tory reluctance, induced the 
Emperor of Russia and the King of France to sign the 
Treaty of London (July 6, 1827), whereby the three 
Powers bound themselves to join in what the unsophis- 



RENASCENCE 269 

ticated public called "an act of international justice." 
Without claiming for Greece complete emancipation, 
they insisted upon a somewhat fuller measure of adminis- 
trative autonomy, and demanded from the belligerents 
an immediate cessation of hostilities, on pain of com- 
pulsion. 

Unfortunately at that juncture Canning died (August, 
1827), and those who succeeded to his authority had no 
desire to press the provisions of the Treaty of London to 
their logical conclusion. Their policy was, by merely 
pacific suasion, to make the Sultan yield a little, that he 
might be saved a lot. The Turks easily saw through the 
superficial accord of the three Powers the underlying 
discrepancy. They knew very well that, though the 
words addressed to them by the three ambassadors 
collectively were identical, each of the three speakers 
attached to them a different value. Counting on English 
support, the Sultan proved inflexible. Thereupon the 
three Powers united their squadrons to impose an armis- 
tice upon the belligerents. The Greeks were only too 
glad to obey ; the Turks promised to cease hostilities, 
and pushed on the extermination of the Greek population. 
The united squadrons, under the command of the English 
admiral Codrington, entered the port of Navarino to 
overawe Ibrahim by their presence. An individual 
attack by the Turks led to a general engagement which 
ended in the annihilation of the Ottoman fleet (Oct. 20, 
1827). 

The victory of Navarino came as a most disagreeable 
shock to the British Government. They saw in it not 
so much the deliverance of Greece as the destruction of 
Turkey's naval power, from which Russia would profit. 
They hastened to explain to their friend the Sultan 
that Codrington had exceeded his instructions and to 



270 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

deplore his action. Wellington, who had protested 
vigorously against the Treaty of London, as involving 
the possibility of a collision with the Porte, did his best, 
as soon as he became Premier, to reassure the latter. 
In the Speech from the Throne at the opening of Parlia- 
ment (Jan. 29, 1828) the affair was characterized as an 
" untoward event," and the hope was expressed that 
this regrettable incident would nowise prejudice the 
traditional amity subsisting between the two Courts. 

Far different was the effect of the same event in the 
other two capitals concerned. Paris received the news 
with joy, Petersburg with boundless exultation. Judging 
that the Ottoman Empire had been sufficiently weakened, 
the Tsar decided to force matters to an issue. On the 
1 8th of January, Capodistrias was appointed President 
of Greece. Simultaneously Russia proposed to the 
Western Powers that they should send their fleets to 
Constantinople, while she sent her armies overland, 
to coerce the Sultan. Wellington refused to entertain 
the proposal, offering instead a plan based on the 
preservation of the Sultan's control over Greece. The 
Tsar, however, would not forgo the opportunity for 
which he had waited so long ; the Porte stupidly played 
into his hands by assuming a challenging tone ; and on 
the 26th of April the Russian army, which had been 
ready since 1821, crossed the Pruth. 

France, not to be left behind, volunteered to finish 
the work which the three Powers had begun in the Morea. 
The united fleets had won an easy triumph at Navarino, 
but in the interior Ibrahim was rapidly earning the 
fame of a butcher : slaying and selling into slavery, 
destroying towns and villages, turning the land into a 
wilderness. To stay his hand an army corps was needed. 
France supplied it : 20,000 soldiers, commanded by 



RENASCENCE 271 

General Maison, landed in the Morea on the 29th of 
August. England, as jealous of France as of Russia, 
co-operated by obliging the Pasha of Egypt to recall his 
son : so that General Maison had little more to do than 
assist at the embarkation of the Egyptian troops and 
expel the remaining Turkish garrisons. 

Meanwhile the Tsar was not idle. By the beginning 
of 1829 one Russian army had crossed the Balkans 
and was marching on Adrianople, and another had 
crossed the Caucasus and was marching on Trepizond. 
The Greeks could hardly believe their senses : All the 
crowned heads of Europe, after letting them bleed almost 
to death for six years, were scrambling for the honour of 
liberating them ! 

And all the time, though the Greeks knew it not, the 
tissue of their future lay on the loom of Diplomacy, and 
busily, secretly, mysterious shuttles plied between the 
warp and the woof of their destiny. How to avert a 
total collapse of Turkey — that was the problem that 
exercised the mighty brains of London and Vienna. 
Metternich advised that they should forestal Russia by 
recognizing the complete independence of the Hellenes : 
thus Greece would be prevented from becoming a Russian 
creation and outpost, and Turkey would be saved from 
future interference by any Power on behalf of a dis- 
contented vassal. It was a clever suggestion, and, more 
than that, it was a constructive policy — very creditable 
to Metternich's genius. But the soldier who guided 
English statesmanship at the time was utterly incapable 
of appreciating its merits. His one fixed idea was that 
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire should be maintained 
at any price. That this integrity had been damaged 
beyond repair by Codrington's action at sea and Maison's 
on land, mattered little to the iron-headed Duke. It 



272 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

was only when the Cossacks were at the gates of Adrian- 
ople that facts managed to convey their own message 
to the ears which had been deaf to argument. Then, at 
last, Wellington decided to save Turkey from utter 
dissolution and to checkmate Russia by making the 
liberation of Greece a joint concern. But even then, 
with characteristic lack of imagination, he clung to the 
doctrine that the next best thing to no Greece at all, was 
as small a Greece as possible. 

By the Protocol of London (March 22, 1829), the 
liberated territory was cut down to the narrowest limits 
compatible with existence, and Greece was constituted 
into a vassal state* paying tribute to the Sultan. After 
this achievement England and Austria compelled Russia 
to sign the Treaty of Adrianople (Sept. 14, 1829), whereby 
the Tsar gave back to the Sultan all his conquests, being 
allowed to keep only the mouths of the Danube, and to 
obtain a rectification of his Asiatic frontiers. 

But, all this diplomatic industry and ingenuity not- 
withstanding, the fate of the Hellenes still remained in 
suspense. Metternich again urged his view that, if 
Greece was to be detached at all from Turkey, it were 
better that she should be detached altogether than be 
left in the condition of the Danubian Principalities — 
always looking to Russia for emancipation and protection. 
Wellington still shrank from so definite a line, but Aber- 
deen had the acumen to adopt it, and it was decided that 
Greece should be erected into an independent kingdom. 
Next the boundaries of that kingdom became a matter of 
acrimonious controversy. While the ambassadors of 
the Great Powers were deliberating in a London drawing- 
room, the question furnished a subject for endless debates 
in Parliament also. Lords Lansdowne, Melbourne, and 
Holland in the Upper House, and Lords Palmerston and 



RENASCENCE 273 

John Russell in the Lower, advocated with great con- 
viction that no settlement of Greece would be either 
satisfactory to her or permanently advantageous to 
Europe, or honourable to England, which did not give 
to the new State an extent adequate for national defence 
and development. They claimed that Thessaly and 
Epirus, as well as all the islands which had fought and 
suffered for freedom, should be included, and this not 
only on the grounds of humanity and justice, but also 
because the inhabitants of those regions, by continuing to 
agitate for emancipation, would force their free brethren 
to assist them, overtly or covertly, thus keeping the 
Ottoman Empire in perpetual unrest and endangering 
the peace of Europe. All these far-seeing — and fairly 
obvious — considerations, coming from Liberals, were 
contemptuously brushed aside by the Tories. The fact 
that Russia and France, each for her own ends, supported 
the Liberal view only served to stiffen Tory opposition; 
and the young State, as finally delimited by the Protocol 
of February, 1830, was a State born mutilated. Prince 
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Bel- 
gians), to whom the throne of Greece was offered, wisely 
declined the gift, saying that he did not wish to rule over 
a country " crippled both morally and physically, weak 
and poor, and exposed to constant danger from the 
Turks." Prince Otho of Bavaria proved less particular, 
and it was under his rule that free Hellas began her 
jejune, circumscribed, and troubled existence. 1 

1 The diplomatic windings which led up to this unfortunate 
consummation are traced with admirable thoroughness, clearness, 
and impartiality in The Cambridge Modern History, X. ch. vi. 
See also the excellent articles on Canning, Castlereagh, and 
Wellington in the Encyclopedia Britannica (9th ed.). 



Chapter III 

ENGLAND AND GREECE 

AFTER the partial emancipation of Greece, England, 
France, and Russia continued to act as her 
recognized Protectors — their protection consisting mainly 
in a constant interference with the domestic politics 
of the kingdom in order to control its foreign relations, 
and in a perennial endeavour on the part of each Power 
to establish its own influence at the expense of the others. 
For Greece, owing to her geographical position and 
historical associations, could not be overlooked in any 
calculation regarding the future of the Ottoman Empire 
and the equilibrium in the Eastern Mediterranean : 
and these were precisely the points about which the three 
Protectors could never agree among themselves. The 
result was that Athens, under their tutelage, became 
a high school for international intrigue in which the 
nascent state was to master the secrets of pettifogging 
instead of the science of governing. The Greeks, thanks 
to their natural quickness and the experience acquired 
through the long centuries of their chequered career, 
proved most apt pupils. They readily lent themselves 
to the machinations of the rival European ministers in 
their capital, and so the history of Hellas during the first 
thirty years of her new life is largely a chronicle of con- 

274 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 275 

tests among the Anglophile, Francophile, and Russophile 

parties. 

* * *. * * 

Of the three Powers, England, as has been seen, did the 
least for Hellenic freedom, and for a long time enjoyed 
the greatest share of Hellenic gratitude. The apparent 
paradox can easily be accounted for. The part which 
Castlereagh had played in retarding the accomplishment 
and Wellington in limiting the extent of their rehabilita- 
tion was unknown to the Greeks of that day : we know 
it from the documents published since. And if it were 
known, the impression of Tory niggardliness would have 
been neutralized by Liberal generosity. The figures of 
Canning and Codrington loomed far larger on the Greek 
horizon than those of their opponents. Besides, in a 
dramatic situation such as Greece had found herself in 
from 1821 to 1831 and with an imaginative people, 
personalities counted for more than protocols. The 
romantic self-sacrifice of one great English poet was 
enough to atone in Greek eyes for the selfish callousness 
of a thousand English politicians. Byron cast an in- 
effaceable glamour upon the Greek mind ; and Byron 
was only the chief of a whole band of English Philhellenes 
who had offered their hearts and their purses on the 
altar of the Greek Idea. The Greeks — copious as is their 
vocabulary — had no words wherewith to express their 
love and veneration for these martyrs to their cause. 
They worshipped their memories, christened children 
by their names ; and later they were to raise statues of 
marble in their honour. Meanwhile even Britons who 
were no longer entitled to Greek gratitude did not 
scruple to profit by it. David Urquhart, one of the 
most arrant Turcophiles that this land of extremes has 
ever begotten, tells how he fell into the hands of Greco- 



276 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Albanian brigands in Macedonia and how he traded 
upon the popularity of the English name among them. 
The miscreants took great care to ascertain their pris- 
oner's nationality : " had I turned out a German, a 
Frenchman, or a Russian," he says, " my fate would 
have been instantly sealed." As he turned out an Eng- 
lishman (Scots abroad seldom hesitate to assume the 
appellation which they so patriotically resent at home — 
and the same thing applies to Irishmen, also), he was 
treated very respectfully. By representing himself as 
an English Philhellene he captivated his captors. Finally 
he was released honoured and unhurt, without wasting 
a "saxpence" on ransom : " Our parting was more like 
the severing of affectionate friends than of robbers from 
their prey." 1 

In England Philhellenism soon went the way of all 
fashion. Even whilst the Insurrection was at its height, 
the first signs of a reaction had made their appearance. 
Of the many Western volunteers who rushed off to bear 
a part in the resuscitation of Hellas few did so from sober 
conviction. The majority were spurred by the wild 
impulses of emotion or ambition. They landed in 
Greece with the absurd expectation of becoming the 
leaders of an army of Homeric demigods. They found 
themselves in the midst of a motley host made up of all 
sorts and conditions of men : cultured graduates of 
Padua and Paris mixed up with semi-savage shepherds 
from Acarnania and Maina ; pure-souled patriots eager 
to shed their blood for an idea, and sordid adventurers 
anxious to fill their pockets ; demagogues who prattled 
of Faith and Fatherland while they thought only of 
faction ; robber-chiefs fighting among themselves. Crime 
was rife in those ragged camps ; mud and malaria 
1 The Spirit of the East (2nd ed. 1839), II. en. xi. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 277 

abounded : it was not a picnic or a pageant, but a grim 
pandemonium. In such circumstances only the stoutest 
hearts and the clearest heads could preserve their poise. 
Small wonder that many of our enthusiasts, disappointed 
in their darling dreams of becoming famous in a day, 
worn-out by physical hardships, disgusted by moral 
lapses, returned home cured of their enthusiasm and 
spoke of the Greek as bitterly as they had spoken of the 
Turk — and with just as much reason. Then came 
peace — more fatal than the worst of wars to a cause that 
depended for its sustenance so largely on sensation. The 
newspapers were no longer filled with thrilling accounts 
of hideous butcheries and heroic exploits. The springs 
of pity and admiration had dried up. The Greek lion, 
after roaring in every London drawing-room for ten 
years, was at last silent. Like every other celebrity, 
Hellas had had her season. Society which had taken her 
up when she supplied a topic for gush, put her down as 
soon as she became dull. 

But if the English people, having many other things 
to think about, found it easy to forget Greece, Greece 
could not forget England. Anglomania had struck 
such deep roots in the susceptible soul of the Hellenic 
race that it survived storms which would have torn up 
a less robust plant. The first of these broke out in 1850. 
That was the era when England, thanks to Lord Palmer- 
ston's indiscriminate and intemperate championship of the 
Civis Romanus, earned abroad the reputation of a Power 
that took pleasure in " bullying the weak and truckling 
to the strong." 1 Greece had an unpleasant experience 

1 These words, and words even stronger than these, occur in a 
trenchant criticism of England's foreign policy from 1850 to 1863 
by the late Lord Salisbury, in the Quarterly Review, April, 1864. 
Though disfigured by the vehemence of the youthful partisan, 



278 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

of British bounce when Her Majesty's Minister at Athens 
condescended to act as the bailiff of a Civis Romanus 
rejoicing in the name of Don Pacifico. This Judeo- 
Spanish Englishman had suffered some losses in a riot, 
and, thinking to make a fortune out of his misfortune, 
presented to the Greek Government an exorbitant bill 
for damages. The Greek Government, reluctant enough 
to meet legitimate claims on its pocket, would not submit 
tamely to unscrupulous extortion. Lord Palmerston 
thought fit to lift this petty quarrel to the plane of an 
international question. He brought the House of Com- 
mons down with his theatrical oratory, deluged the 
English Press with a portentous mixture of Imperialist 
swagger and ill-bred abuse, and dispatched the English 
fleet to exact full payment of Don Pacifico's iniquitous 
bill. The Greeks paid up, and marvelled at their Pro- 
tector's sense of proportion, code of manners, and methods 
of diplomacy. It is only fair to add that the House of 
Lords passed a vote of censure on Palmerston' s indecent 
antics, and the Commons a vote of confidence so worded 
as to amount almost to a vote of censure. 

Scarcely had the painful impression of this episode 
begun to fade away, when a much more serious crisis 
arose to test the strength of Hellenic faith in English 
friendship, and to prove the soundness of the view that 
the exclusion from the kingdom of so many districts 
entitled to emancipation was an act as impolitic as it 

was unjust. 

***** 

There are certain things which the common sense of 
mankind has pronounced impossible. One of these is 
the attempt to run with the hare and hunt with the 

the paper is wel] worth the attention of all Englishmen who wish 
to see themselves through other than the usual spectacles. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 279 

hounds. Yet such was the feat England proposed to 
herself when she assumed the double task of protecting 
at once the independence of Greece and the integrity of 
Turkey. The intrinsic absurdity of the position would 
have been considerably diminished had English statesman- 
ship been far-sighted and courageous enough to sanction 
the emancipation of the bulk of the Greek race in 1831, 
and thenceforth devoted itself to the preservation of the 
remainder of the Ottoman Empire. But, as we have 
seen, English statesmanship, under the guidance of 
Wellington, showed neither the far-sight nor the courage 
which constitute political wisdom. It only displayed 
that timid and short-sighted prudence which consists 
in devising temporary expedients to meet temporary 
exigencies. Instead of seeking for a remedy, Wellington 
and his associates had been satisfied with a palliative. 
They shirked the problem which they ought to have 
solved — which at the time they could have solved ; and 
left their successors to face the consequences of their 
own mediocrity. Generation after generation the world 
had to witness the reopening of an empirically stitched-up 
wound : to go on devising transient palliatives for a 
permanent evil. One of the earliest of these recurrent 
troubles happened in 1853, when the Sultan's affairs once 
more engaged the attention of Europe. 

The rumour of another Russo-Turkish war sent a thrill 
through every Greek heart. It seemed to the free 
Hellenes that the hour of deliverance for the rest of their 
race had struck. Sentiment drove them to a course 
from which a moderate exercise of practical shrewdness 
might have deterred them. Under that impulse, rein- 
forced by Russian instigation, King Otho decided to 
throw in his lot with the Tsar, and Greek bands started 
making inroads into Thessaly and Epirus. It is said 



280 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

that the Prince Consort Albert adopted the Hellenic 
view of the situation and advocated the old idea of the 
replacement of the Ottoman by a Greek Empire with 
Constantinople for its capital, as the best means of 
keeping Russia out of the way to India. But the English 
Government objected, not unreasonably, that such a 
project entailed co-operation with Russia our enemy, 
against Turkey our ally ; and, in truth, no human 
ingenuity could possibly reconcile contradictions inherent 
in, perhaps, the most illogical policy to which any country 
has ever committed itself since politics began. The 
Liberals in 1854 had to make the best of the mess that 
the Tories had bequeathed to them in 183 1. It was a 
very poor best, but no better was available. England, 
with France, after failing to argue Greece out of her 
course, landed troops at the Piraeus and forcibly put an 
end — for the time being — to Greek hopes of expansion. 

The frustration of their very natural desire to bring 
about the unity of their race — and that, too, by the 
Governments which stood for the principle of Nationalities ! 
— aroused a very natural resentment among the Hellenes, 
and the two Western Protectors were regarded as false 
friends — worse than avowed enemies. But, when their 
blood cooled down, the Greek people had the sense to 
realize that no Power could well let them fight with its 
enemy against its ally, and in the next few years we find 
England enjoying in Greece a popularity that caused no 
little chagrin to her rivals. 

It was one of the rare instances in which policy walked 
hand in hand with justice : the stage for the unusual 
performance being supplied by the Ionian Islands. 

As we have seen, through her beneficial and conciliatory 
administration, England had merited and earned the 
attachment of the Ionians, until the Parga tragedy came 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 281 

to spoil everything. This was almost immediately 
followed by the outbreak of the Greek War of Indepen- 
dence, which awakened among the islanders the desire 
for national rehabilitation. When the war ended, 
they found themselves excluded from the Hellenic king- 
dom — still tied to the alien Union Jack, while only a 
few miles off they could see the emblem of free Greece. 
From that hour the relations between rulers and ruled 
became more and more strained. The English accused 
the Ionians of ingratitude, and the Ionians accused the 
English of the sinister design to convert protection into 
possession. Mutual suspicions, voiced and inflamed 
by mutual recriminations, took the place of the old har- 
mony. The Ionians shunned the University established 
at Corfu under English auspices and ostentatiously sent 
their sons to be educated at Athens ; the English officials 
retaliated by abusing the people at whose religious pro- 
cessions they once assisted candle in hand ; even the 
mandarins of Downing Street referred to the Ionian 
patriots as " a pack of scamps." Fleet Street, naturally, 
could not allow itself to be beaten in scurrility by Downing 
Street, and in the London Press the name of the Ionians 
was seldom mentioned without the ornamental epithets 
"brigands," "pirates," and "barbarians." The Ionian 
Press replied in kind. Both sides entirely lost sight of 
all the dictates of good taste, good sense, and good 
nature ; and in 1849 the British authorities in Cephalonia 
had recourse to martial law, which they administered 
with such savagery that what little credit the Union Jack 
still enjoyed was utterly ruined. Thus England made in 
the East seven little Irelands to match the one in the West. 
Things could not remain in that posture indefinitely. 
In 1858 the British Government conceived the happy 
thought of sending out Gladstone to study the ill and 



282 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

devise a remedy. A more fitting selection could not have 
been made. By his classical sympathies, Liberal con- 
victions, and (strange mixture of attributes) that peculiar 
leaning to the Greek Church which he shared with other 
archseologically-minded Anglicans, Gladstone was the 
one man to handle the Ionian tangle in the way in which 
tangles of that sort should always be handled. Moreover 
he was already known to the Greeks as one of their friends 
by the warmth with which he had taken their side in the 
notorious Don Pacifico case. 1 

To say that Gladstone's arrival calmed the Ionian 
waters would be a mistatement. His visit rather had 
the effect of stirring those waters to a greater agitation. 
Wherever he went, he was met by crowds cheering him 
as a Philhellene, and pelting him with petitions for union 
with Greece. To these ovations he answered with ora- 
tions which carried his hearers across the ages to the 
days of the Pnyx. At Athens, his biographer tells us, 
" he had a reception only a shade less cordial than if he 
were Demosthenes come back." In the intervals of 
delivering and listening to speeches, he applied himself 
to the problem with his usual thoroughness. Persuaded 
that the people had very much to complain of, he drew 
up a plan for turning the mockery of self-government into 
a reality, and submitted it to the Ionian Assembly. 
But the time for compromise had gone by. The tactless- 
ness of forty years, culminating in the Cephalonian 
severities, had damaged the British rule beyond the 
possibility of mending. The Assembly unanimously 
demanded that it should be ended. The only protection 
they needed and desired was that of the Mother Country. 
Gladstone temporized. His own view was that union 
with Greece was, indeed, the only sound remedy, and 

1 See his Speech in the House of Commons, June 27, 1850. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 283 

there were other Liberal statesmen in London who 
thought so, too. But, like them, he also considered 
that the moment for that remedy was not yet. Greece 
herself at that time, Englishmen declared, did not enjoy 
anything better than the mockery of self-government. 1 

Nevertheless, Gladstone's mission had more than a 
mollifying effect both on the Ionians and on their brethren 
across the sea. The Greeks recognized in him a spiritual 
descendant of their revered Canning : a large-minded 
and large-hearted champion of international justice. 
With such men in London, they argued, .England could 
not fail to do the right thing sooner or later. The Anglo- 
phile party in Greece recovered from the torpor consequent 
on the Crimean War, and the old faith in England revived. 

An opportunity for the manifestation of this feeling 
was offered by the internal convulsion the Kingdom 
went through in 1862-1864. The foreign forces at work 
behind and beneath the stage on which that domestic 
drama unfolded itself still are, to a large extent, a secret, 
and will remain one till the British, French, and Russian 
Foreign Office archives are thrown open to the historian's 
inquisitive eye. But enough is known to make the 
action intelligible. 



King Otho and his Queen Amelie, though strangers 
by birth, had attached themselves to their adopted 
country with a sincerity which is no longer disputed. 
They were as passionately imbued as the most patriotic 
of their subjects with the Great Hope—the hope that 
soon all the Hellenes would find themselves united 
under one sovereign whose seat would be on the Bos- 
phorus : a Greek sovereign, heir to all the splendours 

1 See John Morley's Life of W. E. Gladstone, I. ch. x. 



284 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

of Hellas and Byzantium. In the contemplation of that 
glorious ideal they lived and moved and had their being ; 
without, however, neglecting actualities. They did 
what in them lay to prepare for the future by bettering 
the present. The King strove to organize the civil and 
military resources of the country — to create some sort of 
cosmos out of the chaos of devastation and tumult in 
which Greece had been left by her protracted travail 
for rebirth. The Queen was no less zealous in her own 
sphere of activity. The buildings of her experimental 
farm, and of the various charitable and educational 
establishments she founded, still testify to her beneficent 
enthusiasm. Both loved Greece and meant thoroughly 
well by her. But, alas ! neither understood her thor- 
oughly. 

The Greeks at no epoch of their history of three thou- 
sand years have been an easy people to govern. The 
independence of mind which makes them so self-reliant 
as men, also makes them very self-assertive as citizens 
and soldiers. They are too apt to bring individualism 
into every question they touch upon, forgetting that the 
qualities which conduce to success in the counting-house 
or the class-room may, if indulged to excess, spell dis- 
aster in the senate-house or the camp. No nation has 
more eloquently expounded the virtues of union and 
discipline in its literal" re, and none has more consistently 
disregarded them in r. actice. This inordinate passion 
for the exercise of priwte judgment has always been the 
curse of the public life of Greece. In pagan antiquity 
it led to fatal political disruptions ; after the advent of 
Christianity to innumerable religious schisms ; in modern 
times to party divisions unparalleled in their triviality. 
It was such a people that Otho had undertaken to govern, 
and that, too, at a time when, owing to abnormal cir- 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 285 

cumstances, its habitual impatience of control had 
reached the point of downright turbulence. 

The position would have been a very difficult one to 
a prince equipped for it by temperament and training. 
Otho had neither the temperament nor the training 
which the position demanded. Born and bred in a 
despotic environment, he knew no other method of ruling 
than the paternal method. Like the rest of his race, 
he loved arbitrary power. The Greek pallikars, fresh 
from their long and sanguinary fight for liberty, soon 
began to murmur that their new sovereign was trying to 
make himself, under the forms of a free polity, scarcely less 
absolute than the old had been : though a limited monarch 
in name, he was a Sultan by nature. And that was 
not all. Like the Hanoverians in England, this Bavarian 
had brought into Greece a large nu mber of his country- 
men to whom he entrusted some of the highest offices. 
His partiality for foreign administrators was doubtless 
necessitated by the lack of native administrative talent : 
Greece just emerging from the anarchy of centuries was far 
richer in warriors than in statesmen ; and there may be 
some exaggeration as to the lengths to which he carried his 
preference. But the mere presence of these foreigners 
was sufficient to excite the jealousy of the natives. 

And while this " unpatriotic " conduct tended to make 
the dynasty unpopular with the Greeks, its patriotic 
devotion to the Great Idea rendered it obnoxious to their 
Protectors. Each of the three Powers entertained 
views on the Eastern Question utterly incompatible 
with the realization of that Idea ; and each wanted to 
have on the Greek throne a tool of its own ambition. 
Otho was as little pliant to external pressure as he was to 
domestic opinion. Thus forces from without and forces 
from within conspired to shake the Bavarian dynasty. 



286 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The King was charged by the Athenian politicians and 
place-hunters with favouring his own compatriots unduly. 
It was then for this, cried the coffee-house orators, that 
Greece had shed her blood : to exchange one alien yoke 
for another ! The Press was indignant, interested agents 
were active, Otho was represented as having objects in 
view which no free nation could suffer its sovereign to 
attain. Public discontent, fed by private calumny, 
daily grew in intensity, and in 1843 it caused a revolution. 
Otho, by the parade of military force, was compelled 
to dismiss his Bavarian ministers and to promise that 
in future he would rule constitutionally. But the recon- 
ciliation did not last. With the pathetic blindness of a 
good and stupid man, Otho doggedly persisted in his 
policy ; caring neither about those who attacked his 
throne openly nor about those who undermined it in 
secret. Conscious of the rectitude of his motives, he 
paid as little attention to the wisdom of his well-wishers 
as to the malice of his opponents. The Greeks ended by 
believing that the Bavarian reign was hostile to their 
welfare. The grounds upon which they founded this 
belief were false, but they were as fatal to the dynasty 
as if they were true. Otho and Amelie became the objects 
of general obloquy ; and their unpopularity reached its 
colophon when it was found that the King approved of 
Austria's efforts to quench the Italian Insurrection 
(1848-1861). This was the drop that made the cup of 
Hellenic discontent overflow : their King was the enemy 
of Liberty. However much he might love Greece, he 
loved tyranny more. On the 13th of February, 1862, 
a second revolution broke out, and this time it proved 
decisive. The royal couple were refused admittance to 
their own capital. Otho perceived that, if the hatred 
he inspired was justified, he was unfit for Greece ; if 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 287 

unjustified, Greece was unfit for him. He retired from 
the country which for thirty years he had done his utmost 
to benefit and to estrange. 

The Hellenes were inspired to seek in the island which 
understood so well and practised so successfully the art 
of self-government the sort of ruler that was not to be 
found on the benighted continent of Europe : the inspira- 
tion being reinforced with a hint that the search might 
result in the discovery of other blessings. Accordingly, 
soon after Otho's departure, a great crowd assembled 
before the British Legation at Athens, and a deputation 
was sent in to inform the Minister of the wish of the Greeks 
that Queen Victoria's son Alfred might accept their 
throne. The Minister, provided with no instructions 
from home, was sorely put to it to find language ambiguous 
enough not to commit him and yet sufficiently cordial 
not to damp the Anglophile sentiments of the Athenians. 
The deputation carried away the impression that the 
British Government was not averse to their offer, and 
the popularity of England rose to greater and yet greater 
heights, attaining the fever-pitch when it became known 
that she was, on the one hand, proposing to recommend 
to the Porte the cession of Thessaly and Epirus, 
and on the other to hand over to them the Ionian 
Islands. 

The communication of these intentions filled our 
representatives at Athens with consternation, and the 
Hellenes with frenetic enthusiasm. While the former 
regarded the transference of the Ionian Protectorate to 
those to whom, by blood, language, religion, geography 
and national sentiment, it belonged, as an act of Liberal 
madness most prejudicial to the British Empire's interests 
and influence, the latter looked upon it as a brilhant 
demonstration of England's lofty sense of justice — as 



288 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

an act of noble disinterestedness that raised the British 
far above the base level of every other empire known to 
history. If the candidature of Prince Alfred had been 
popular before, it now became simply irresistible. France 
and Russia had their own partisans and candidates; 
but, when the question was put to the vote, out of 241,202 
citizens who voted, 230,016 gave their suffrages to the 
English prince. 

The British Government could not, of course, accept 
this tribute of Hellenic homage ; for the three Protectors, 
in accordance with the doctrine of the balance of power, 
had long ago warned each other's reigning families off 
the throne of Greece. Its passive acquiescence in the 
movement which resulted in the election of Prince Alfred 
was a mere diplomatic manoeuvre intended to let the 
world see how the three Powers severally stood in 
Greek esteem. Once this object achieved, and the field 
swept clean of the rival candidates, it declined the honour. 
The Hellenes were inspired to consider that the next 
best thing to an English prince was an English nominee ; 
and they begged England to name her man. The British 
Government set to work to study the Almanack de Gotha, 
and the British Legation at Athens betook itself to the 
same quaint little volume. During something like a 
fortnight, telegrams came pouring in upon the English 
Minister, submitting name after name : the list was as 
long as it was illustrious, ranging from the King Consort 
of Portugal to a microscopic Prince of Holstein. And all 
the time the Athenians shouted themselves hoarse under 
the windows of the British Legation. At last a suitable 
person was found in Prince William of Denmark. The 
British Government proposed him, the Greek people 
accepted him, and on the 30th of October, 1863, he 
ascended the Greek throne with the name of George I, 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 289 

and the significant title of " King of the Hellenes "— - 
not of the actual Greek Kingdom only. 

England failed in her project of inducing the Sultan 
to part with Thessaly and Epirus — how she could ever 
have hoped to succeed, it is difficult to understand. 
But she carried out her own promise about the Ionian 
Islands. On the 5th of June, 1864, the High Com- 
missioner himself laid the Ionian standard at the feet of 
King George. 1 

It looked as though these transactions were destined 
to place Anglo-Hellenic friendship on a footing of impreg- 
nable solidity. But the expectation was not fulfilled. 
In that year the relations between the two countries 
attained the climax of cordiality. All that follows is a 
sad anti-climax. 

If English statesmen imagined that the expulsion of 
Otho and the acquisition of the Ionian Islands would 
put a stop to the Greek agitation for national unity, 
they were much mistaken. To the Hellenes the title of 
their new sovereign was no empty phrase. In addition 
to the Ionians there were many other children of the dis- 
membered family crying for admittance to the hearth 
of Hellenism. The most urgent and most forlorn of 
these were the Cretans. They had fought for their 
independence in 1821 like their brethren of the mainland 
and, unlike the latter, they had, after many vicissitudes, 
conquered it. Yet the Powers had insisted that they 
should return to slavery; and consoled Mohammed 
Ali for the loss of the Morea by giving him Crete. The 
Power chiefly responsible for this stupendous wrong was 
England, or, to be more precise, the Tory party — " the 
English Pashas," as the Greeks called them— led by 

1 See Sir Horace Rumbold's Recollections of \a Diplomatist, II. 
ch. xviii. and xix. 



2qo TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

the Duke of Wellington ; and it was on the exclusion 
of Crete that Prince Leopold dwelt as the main reason 
for his refusal of the Hellenic crown : " Greece/' he 
wrote to the Duke on the 9th of February, 1830, "will 
never be made to understand and appreciate the exclusion 
of Candia, and out of this circumstance alone a perpetual 
source of irritation will flow." 

This forecast was amply justified by events. The 
Cretans would neither resign themselves to their fate 
nor abandon hope : the less because the Egyptian rule 
was no better than the Turkish. In 1833 the resentment 
of the outraged people burst into flame ; and again it 
was the policy of the three Powers that baulked its aspira- 
tions. 1 Seven years of sullen quietude had passed, 
when Mohammed Ali rebelled against his sovereign (1840). 
The patrons of the Ottoman Empire punished him by 
handing Crete back to the Sultan. Thereupon the 
islanders took up arms again, routed the Turkish troops, 
and proclaimed their union with Greece. Once more 
the Powers stepped in to rob the unhappy people of the 
fruits of its victory. But each discomfiture seemed only 
to strengthen the Cretans' determination. In 1858 
they rose for the third time ; and the Porte, prompted 
by its Western friends, pledged itself to introduce admini- 
strative decency. It is not improbable that the reform- 
ing Sultan Abdul Mejid meant to keep his word ; but, 
however that may be, certain it is that his imbecile 
successor Abdul Aziz openly declared that he did not 
consider himself bound by his predecessor's engagements. 
The upshot was a fourth rising (1866). 

The Sultan, seeing his armies crushed, appealed to his 
Egyptian vassal for help. The Khedive landed troops 
which were defeated and decimated by the insurgents 

1 See Pashley's Travels in Crete, 1837. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 291 

in three successive campaigns. The Sultan's next move 
was to try to delude by diplomacy the men he had failed 
to subdue by force. But the Cretans had too often 
tested the value of Ottoman pledges. Nothing short of 
liberty would satisfy them. Russia, France, and Ger- 
many, each actuated by different motives, concurred in 
pronouncing union with Greece the only solution. But 
England, who throughout the Cretan drama had played 
the part of the Sultan's senior counsel, again vetoed that 
solution. The English Foreign Minister, Lord Stanley, 
declared that Greece had alienated British sympathy 
for the characteristically British reason that her financial 
morality was not all that could be desired : " Opinion 
here is undecided about the Cretan quarrel," wrote this 
Stock Exchange statesman, who, by the way, was one 
of several Englishmen said to have refused the crown of 
Greece. " Nobody much believes in the Turks, but the 
old Philhellenism is dead, and cannot be revived. Greece 
is too much associated in the English mind with unpaid 
debts and commercial sharp practice to command the 
sympathy that was felt thirty years ago." x So, because 
the London usurers were dissatisfied with their invest- 
ments at Athens, the Cretan neck should be again thrust 
into the collar. 

In the meantime the English Admiral of the Sultan's 
fleet, Hobart Pasha, was carrying out the orders of his 
two masters with a zeal which won him the thanks of 
Turkey and the anathemas of Greece. He blockaded 
Crete, and, in violation of international law, entered the 
Hellenic port of Syra to intercept the Greek blockade- 
runners which were provisioning the insurgents. The 
Athens Government protested in London, and Her 

1 In Lord Newton's Lord Lyons : a record of British Diplomacy, 
i. 163. 



292 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Majesty's Government set itself right before the eyes of 
the world by removing temporarily Hobart's name from 
the Navy List. But this formality did not in the least 
affect the course of English policy ; even the humane 
action of Captain Pirn of H.M.S. Assurance, who rescued 
a number of Cretan women and children and landed 
them at the Piraeus, did not meet with unqualified 
approval from the Foreign Office. Presently the other 
Powers, by each obtaining a quid pro quo, fell into line 
with England ; and united Europe commanded Greece 
to desist from helping the rebels. The Cretans, though 
victorious, were starved into surrender ; and the Porte 
repeated its often-broken promise to amend its administra- 
tive ways. 1 

The unpopularity which Greece, by her participation 
in the Cretan struggle, had incurred with Englishmen — 
people always hate those whom they injure — was 
heightened by another incident that occurred soon after. 
Brigandage, that inevitable legacy of misrule in every 
corner of the globe, had not yet been extirpated from 
the Hellenic Kingdom, and in 1870 some well-connected 
Englishmen fell victims to the pest. The event stirred 
up in England an anti-Hellenic storm more violent than 
any ever caused by Turkish massacres : for months the 
Press was filled with streams of invective, yells of rage, 
and demands for vengeance on the whole Greek nation. 

Then came another political crisis to widen still further 
the breach ; and this time it was the turn of Greece to 
inveigh against England. 

In 1877 the Eastern Question was reopened, and the re- 
opening gave rise to the customary paroxysm of excite- 
ment among the Hellenes. As always, they saw in it 
an opportunity for the realization of their national 

1 See Stillman's The Cretan Insurrection, 1866-68. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 293 

dream. Crete once more flew to arms, and Thessaly 
was roused. But both movements were nipped by the 
speedy cessation of Russo-Turkish hostilities. Imme- 
diately after the signature of the San Stefano Treaty 
the Powers interested in the preservation of the Ottoman 
Empire intervened. The Cretans who, meanwhile, had 
been carrying everything before them, were compelled 
to grant the Sultan's troops an armistice. The Sultan 
turned the truce to account by sending to the island 
reinforcements and attacking the insurgents unawares. 
The latter, however, proved once more victorious, and 
addressed to the Powers the familiar prayer for union 
with Greece. But whatever the other Powers may 
have thought, England was anxious to check rather 
than to accelerate the process of Turkish disintegration. 
Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury — the two statesmen 
who at the time controlled England's foreign policy — 
saw with deep concern the Sick Man sinking fast under 
the weight of internal and external ailments. They 
saw his figure dwindle in a few months from its still 
considerable portliness to a mere skeleton. They hurried 
to his bedside to do what they could for him — and they did 
it, partly at the expense of Russia's Slav clients, but 
chiefly at the expense of the Greeks. Thanks to them, 
the Berlin Congress decided that, whereas the stipulations 
in favour of Montenegro were positive — the Sultan 
being definitely ordered to cede Dulcigno to the Princi- 
pality — those concerning the cession of Thessaly and 
Epirus to Greece should be in the nature of mere recom- 
mendations, and their execution left to a direct agreement 
between the interested parties, the Powers only promising 
their arbitration in case of non-agreement. It was, 
naturally, anticipated that the Greeks would not be con- 
tent with this vague arrangement. But Lord Beacons- 



294 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

field explained in a long speech that, since Turkey was 
not to be partitioned, nothing more could be done for 
them. i 

Even this half-hearted concession to Hellenic claims 
was doomed to remain largely a dead letter. Abdul 
Hamid, as everybody expected, took full advantage 
of the vagueness of his engagement. In 1879 a Greco- 
Turkish Commission met to demarcate the new 
boundary, but its labours were wrecked on the Sultan's 
refusal to yield the frontier recommended by the Con- 
gress. Thereupon Greece appealed to the Powers, and 
their ambassadors met at Berlin to arbitrate. Their 
verdict was that Turkey should carry out the recommenda- 
tions of the Congress. Turkey turned a deaf ear to 
this sentence, and as the days went by there was a growing 
danger of a war between the parties. 

Abdul Hamid had fully counted on England to support 
him in his attitude. But luck was against him. At that 
juncture (Easter, 1880) Gladstone assumed the reins of 
the English Government, and Gladstone was bent on 
undoing some of the mischief his predecessors had done, 
in strict accord with the views he had already expressed : 
Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury had spoken in 
Berlin in the tones of Metternich, and not in the tones 
of Canning, or of Palmerston, or of Russell. It was their 
part to take the side of Liberty, and they took the side 
of Servitude. A great work of emancipation had been 
achieved for the Slavs of the Ottoman Empire ;• he 
deplored that equal regard had not been paid to the case 
of the Hellenes. 2 

Goschen was sent to Constantinople (May, 1880) 
to replace the Turcophile Layard. Like Gladstone and 

1 See Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, July 6, 1878, ii. 221. 

2 Speech in the House of Commons, July 30, 1878. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 295 

his Foreign Secretary Granville, Goschen was animated 
by the friendliest sentiments towards Greece, and was 
determined to coerce Turkey into compliance with the 
terms of the Berlin verdict — provided the other Powers 
would co-operate ; for, obviously, it would have been 
very poor business to purchase peace in the East at the 
risk of a war in the West. He found the Sultan firm in 
the belief that the Concert of Europe, when it came to 
deeds, would break down, and so disposed to pay but 
small heed to its words. Abdul Hamid's policy then, 
as ever, was that of " wait and see." His tactics soon 
exhausted the patience of Gladstone, of Goschen, and of 
those English diplomats who thought as they did. The 
first meditated a naval demonstration at Smyrna and a 
sequestration of the Sultan's Customs. The second 
went farther, advocating the dispatch of the British 
fleet to the Dardanelles, if the other Powers would con- 
sent. Lord Odo Russell, our Ambassador at Berlin, 
went farthest of all : he would leave Smyrna to her figs 
and send the British fleet straight to the Golden Horn, 
whether the other Powers liked it or not. 1 Of course, 
this last was a counsel of madness, and yet it was the 
apprehension of British force that finally brought Abdul 
Hamid to his knees. The Powers, when the proposal of 
a joint naval demonstration was made to them, promptly 
rejected it. The Sultan, however, seems to have heard 
of the proposal and not of the refusal. 2 So, just at the 
moment when the English Government was at the end 
of its diplomatic tether, he unexpectedly gave way ; 
and, in July, 1881, the matter in dispute was submitted 
to a Boundary Commission representing the six Powers 

1 Goschen to Granville, Sept. 28 ; Odo Russell to the Same, 
Oct. 9, 1880, in A. D. Elliot's Life of Lord Goschen, i. 200, foil. 

2 See Morley's Gladstone, hi. 8, 10 ; Newton's Lord Lyons, ii. 
223, foil. ; Blue Book, Turkey, 7 (if 



296 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and the two interested parties. Before the close of the 
year, a large portion of Thessaly and a small fragment 
of Epirus were actually ceded to Greece — enough to 
soothe her hunger rather than to satisfy her appetite ; 
and even to this concession the Powers were forced, not 
by any regard for Greece, but by the fear lest an absolute 
disappointment should endanger the Greek dynasty. 1 

But what about Crete ? The Sultan had from the 
first taken his stand on the ground that he might submit 
to an insular or to a continental amputation, but would 
never submit to both operations at once. On the whole, 
he would rather lose Crete than Thessaly and Epirus. 
Indeed, at one moment he was reported to have declared 
that he would rather risk another war than " pull out 
all the hairs of his beard." After pulling out some of 
those imperial ornaments, the Powers decided to let him 
keep the rest. Crete was among this remnant. Goschen 
had been compelled to this limitation of the operation 
as the lesser of two evils, but he never ceased to regret it : 
" I have often wondered," he wrote in after years, " while 
recording this long diplomatic struggle, whether the 
reader, judging by subsequent events in Crete, will 
question the wisdom of the purely continental solution, 
which was due in great part to my action. What infinite 
trouble to all the Powers would have been saved, and 
what insurrections, what naval demonstrations would 
have been avoided, if the island had been ceded to Greece 
in 1881 ! " a 

1 This was Goschen 's view, and his biographer puts it frankly : 
" Certainly the Ambassadors showed themselves quite indifferent 
to Greek interests so long as enough was secured to save the King 
from a revolution." Elliot, i. 220. Cp. Bismarck's statement 
to General Pittife : "In Greece there is only one honest man, that 
is the King, for he is not a Greek, and we must not suffer him to 
be driven out." Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, ii. 275. 

* Elliot, op. cit. i. 233. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 297 

Though keenly disappointed about Epirus and more 

keenly still about Crete, the Greeks knew whom they 

had to thank even for this partial fulfilment of their 

expectations, and they manifested their gratitude in 

characteristic fashion : they subscribed for the erection 

of Gladstone's statue, and when he celebrated his political 

jubilee (Dec. 13, 1882) they presented him with an 

address in a superb casket. But for Gladstone's country 

they could no longer feel much enthusiasm. The hopes 

they had built on the fact that their King was England's 

own nominee and the brother of England's future Queen 

had proved vain. They had learnt how little dynastic 

ties influence the course of diplomacy, and the most 

enlightened among them had begun to realize that it 

was not in foreign sympathy, but in the development 

of her own strength that Hellas must seek the way to 

success. ^What love for England still remained in the 

Hellenic heart was confined to the Liberal party and 

its illustrious chief. But soon there occurred events 

which weakened even this attenuated bond. 
***** 

If there is a nation that the Greeks detest, despise, 
and dread more than the Turkish, it is the Bulgarian. 
The feeling is of very ancient growth : it arose many 
centuries before the Turk's advent in Europe, and it 
will linger for many centuries after his departure. During 
the five hundred years of Bulgarian servitude the anti- 
pathy lay dormant ; but it awoke as fierce as ever with 
the awakening of the Bulgarian nationality. The San 
Stefano Treaty had shown the Hellenes that in the Balkan 
Peninsula there was no room both for a Big Bulgaria 
and for a Greater Greece. On Hellenic opposition to 
Bulgarian claims Beaconsfield and Salisbury had founded 
one of their arguments for the reduction of Russia's 

u 



298 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

creation, and for the separation of the southern parts 
from the northern by the erection of Eastern Rumelia 
into a distinct province. Seven years after that act, 
so acceptable to the Greeks, the Bulgars annexed this 
province, with its large Hellenic minority, in open defiance 
of the Treaty of Berlin and of their own liberators. 

The situation brought about by this coup d'etat was 
not devoid of a humorous aspect. Russia, who had 
fought a costly war to liberate Bulgaria under the impres- 
sion that she was building for herself a bridge to Con- 
stantinople, suddenly saw her work crumble away under 
her feet, and urged the Sultan to go and chastise his 
impudent vassals. England, who under a similar im- 
pression had done her best to ruin the Tsar's handiwork, 
not less suddenly discovered that it was not a Russian 
bridge after all, but rather an anti-Russian barrier 
which, with proper management, might be made into 
an anti-Russian bulwark. British diplomacy lost no 
time in exploiting its discovery. Oblivious of all his 
labours at Constantinople and Berlin, Salisbury came 
forth as the defender of the State which had torn up the 
international covenant he once valued as his master- 
piece ; and the Tory party which never tired of scolding 
Greece for disturbing its dear status quo now embraced 
Bulgaria for precisely the same offence. 

In Constantinople the British Government had an 
ideal representative for carrying out its political ter- 
giversation with vigour and conviction. Sir William 
White, in virtue of his Polish upbringing, was most sym- 
pathetic to Southern Slav aspirations, and now he found 
a splendid opportunity for gratifying his personal senti- 
ments while at the same time serving his country's 
interests. "We have always been accused by Russia 
and her agents in the East of being the chief obstacles 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 299 

to the emancipation of Christian races in European 
Turkey," he said. " The reasons for a particular line 
of policy on our part have fortunately ceased to exist, 
and we are free to act impartially and to take up gradually, 
with proper restraints, the line which made Palmerston 
famous in regard to Belgium, Italy, etc. . . . These 
newly emancipated races want to breathe free air and not 
through Russian nostrils." * 

Such were the ideas which inspired England's affection 
for Bulgaria in 1885, an d have continued to inspire it 
to this day. They are not unreasonable in themselves ; 
but the Greeks could hardly be expected to see the matter 
in that light. To them the Bulgar was a hereditary 
enemy, older and, for the future, more formidable than 
the Turk. His aggrandizement, unless counterbalanced 
by proportionate aggrandizement on their part, spelt 
disaster. If the doctrine of the Equilibrium held for the 
Great Powers, surely it also held for the small. They 
proceeded to mobilize with a view to exacting territorial 
compensation from Turkey — if nothing more, at least 
the portions of Epirus and Thessaly which the Congress 
of Berlin had assigned to them and the Sultan had been 
suffered to retain. It was England's fate to baulk 
Hellenic aspirations once more. Lord Salisbury began 
with a friendly but earnest remonstrance, coupled with 
the warning that the Hellenic Government would only 
be laying itself open to humiliation if it persevered in 
its warlike path. But even if the Hellenic Government 
had the wish, it lacked the power to profit by this advice. 
The popular movement which had set in was too strong 
for it. The excitement daily increased, and the Govern- 
ment was obliged to lead the forces it could not control. 

1 White to Morier, Dec. 7, 1885, in H.S. Edwards' Sir William 
Whitt : His Life and Cvrfespondmce, 331-234, 



3 oo TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Large bodies of men poured into the capital from every 
part of the kingdom, clamouring for war ; day and night 
the streets swarmed with processions of flag-wagging 
students, professional men, peasants, mountaineers ; 
and the houses were choked with rampant reservists. 
Soon conflicts between the Greek and Turkish troops 
began to take place on the frontier. Then all the Great 
Powers, through their representatives at Athens, reit- 
erated to the Hellenic Premier the British admonition. 
But neither this nor several subsequent steps of the 
same nature had the effect of allaying the rising storm. 
Even those extreme politicians of opposite sides who 
agreed in nothing else, agreed in calling for a vindication 
by force of arms, if necessary, of the interests of Hellen- 
ism. Popular excitement rapidly attained delirious 
dimensions ; the tension between Greece and Turkey 
increased ; and the Greek Premier spoke of war as being 
unavoidable. His feeling, he said, at first had been that 
Greece could attempt nothing without the support 
of at least one of the Great Powers, and he had indeed 
looked to England to back him ; but, as he had received 
no encouragement from that quarter, he was now quite 
prepared to go on alone. As though the disappointment 
about England was not sufficiently justified by the 
policy of the British Government, it was deepened and 
embittered by the tone in which that policy was inter- 
preted by its local agent : a compound of insolence and 
asperity x all the more unpardonable because, while 
bullying the Greeks, the British Minister knew that they 
were in the right. His own opinion was that some degree 
of friendliness on the part of Great Britain might have 
better results than any amount of hectoring. The Hel- 

1 For samples, see Sir Horace Rumbold's own book, Final 
Recollections of a Diplomatist, 55, 69. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 301 

lenic Government, he recognized, was in a position of 
great embarrassment : for internal considerations, it 
could not disarm without hope of an equivalent being 
held out to it. Further, he had reasons to believe that 
the Greeks would probably have been content with less 
than they had claimed at Berlin. As to Turkey, she 
would find some compensation, for whatever territorial 
concessions she might make, in an intimate alliance with 
Greece against the common danger from the Slavs. 
Such an arrangement, if brought about by England, 
would have made her paramount in Greece. 1 These 
were the Minister's own views ; , but no British Govern- 
ment, apparently, is ever capable of seeing a situation 
from more than one angle at a time ; and things pursued 
their fatal course. 

With the opening of 1886 the position began to assume 
a more serious aspect : Greece, fully armed and determined 
to go all lengths, was only awaiting the final settlement 
of the Eastern Rumelian Question by the Powers formally 
to claim the execution of the Berlin verdict. After one 
more collective Note peremptorily ordering instant 
disarmament, with which the Hellenic Government 
reiterated its inability to comply, the Powers began to 
think of coercion ; and again it was England who went 
out of her way to make herself conspicuous. Lord 
Salisbury instructed Her Majesty's representative at 
Athens to give the King a hint of the impending measures. 
As any one might have foreseen, the King of the Hellenes 
greatly resented what he justly considered a most unfair 
pressure applied to his country : was it equitable that 
England should bully Greece into abandoning rights 
sanctioned by the highest international tribunal, while 
she supported Bulgaria in the violation of that tribunal's 
1 Final Recollections of a Diplomatist, 55-57. 



302 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

solemn decisions ? Itf may be that Salisbury intended 
this, like a similar unofficial warning addressed to the 
Premier, as a last effort to spare Greece the bitter cup 
he had prepared for her ; if so, it was a case of good 
intentions miscarrying through an unfortunate manner. 
Englishmen are famous among the nations of the earth 
for a certain ungracious way of " being kind " which 
rarely conciliates their foes, which often irritates their 
friends, but in which they obstinately persist under the 
curious delusion that this is the way to make themselves 
popular. The English Minister at Athens had his full 
share of this national tactfulness. He talked to the 
Hellenic Premier like a choleric governess trying to save 
a naughty child from itself, and was surprised at the 
result. 1 Indignant masses held meetings under the 
windows of the Legation, resolutions protesting against 
the conduct of the British Government were passed, and 
telegrams embodying the sentiments of the Greek people 
were sent to the Speaker of the House of Commons : 
naturally without the least effect. 

The Hellenes were not greatly astonished at Lord 
Salisbury's attitude towards them : they had never been 
spoilt by Tory smiles. But a great shock was in store 
for them from a quite unexpected quarter. On the ist 
of February, 1886, Gladstone became, for the third time, 
Prime Minister. With Gladstone's return to power 
the hopes of Greece revived. But they were speedily 
dashed to the ground. In answer to a telegram from 
the Mayor of Athens, Gladstone plainly stated that, 
however great his sympathies for them, he could not but 
tell the Greeks that the position they had taken up was 
indefensible, and that the Powers were determined to 

1 See his own version of his rows with the head of the Govern- 
ment to which he was accredited, ibid. 69-77. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 303 

defeat it. Even more plain-spoken was he in a message 
he caused to be conveyed to the ex-Premier Tricoupis 
who had passed much of his youth in England, and loved 
her only less than he loved Greece. These utterances 
produced such a revulsion of feeling in the Hellenes, 
who had hitherto idolized Gladstone and identified his 
name with the prospects of their country, that all thoughts 
of setting up his statue — just finished — were given up, 
lest it should be made the object of some disagreeable 
demonstration on the part of the disenchanted people. 

Europe next proceeded to translate its threats into 
action : the Great Powers which could not combine to 
use force against Abdul Hamid, found themselves, with 
one exception, united, under England's leadership, 
against King George (May 8). At that point, England 
gave yet another token of her tact by placing the inter- 
national armada sent to blockade the Greek ports — a 
display of naval strength second only to the vast arma- 
ments brought against Hellas by Xerxes of old 1 — under the 
supreme command ot the Duke of Edinburgh : the prince 
whom the Hellenes twenty-two years before had chosen 
with one accord to rule over them. 

The bearing of the Greek people under this ordeal, 
be it added by way of artistic relief, was such as to extort 
even from the British Minister in their midst a grudging 
tribute of astonished admiration. Not a word or even 
gesture of disrespect was used towards him or his col- 
leagues at any stage of the proceedings which culminated 
in this final affront to their national pride : while an 
English baronet abused their Government and an English 
prince seized their shipping, the Athenian shoeblacks 

1 The disproportionate dimensions of this instrument of coer- 
cion, says our gifted Minister at Athens, " might well have grati- 
fied the susceptible Hellenes " (79) — on the principle, I suppose, 
that the bigger the stick, the less painful the blows. 



304 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

treated England's representative with the quiet dignity of 
gentlemen. 1 

Greece, needless to say, subsided. 

There ensued an interval of peace, or rather of lassitude 
— such as always follows upon a period of intense excite- 
ment. A feeble attempt was made by English philan- 
thropy to efface from the minds of the Hellenes the insults 
and injuries they owed to English policy. Soon after the 
national upheaval described, the country was visited 
by a very severe earthquake. The British Minister 
at Athens telegraphed to the Duke of Edinburgh, and 
two English warships were sent to the scene of the 
calamity with stores, tents, and succour of various kinds 
for the sufferers. A good deal of money also came from 
England. But the resentful spirit engendered by the 
blockade was still so strong that a very inadequate sense 
of this help to them in their trouble was evinced by the 
Greek Government and people. The same uncordial 
attitude was maintained towards the Mediterranean fleet 
when, in the course of its autumn cruise, it called at the 
Piraeus. The Greeks, even in the midst of their sorrows, 
have a keen eye for the grotesque ; and this English 
essay in courtesy afforded to the Athenian Press ample 
scope for caricatures and appropriate comments. What 
else could be expected ? Even the British Minister felt 
constrained to admit that the visit, which had been 
arranged by express orders from the Admiralty, was 
rather unfortunately timed. 2 

Thus England contrived, with wonderful skill and 
sagacity, within the space of a few months to make herself 
to the Hellenes both odious and ridiculous. 

;fc ife A A ifc 

Hardly had the traces of this commotion passed away, 

1 Final Recollections of a Diplomatist, 94. 2 Ibid. 114-115. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 305 

when a new imbroglio arose out of the eternal sore of 
Crete. 

For ten years the Cretans acquiesced in the Pact of 
Halepa which they had accepted under British pressure 
in 1878. Though only a compromise, it was better than 
nothing — so long as it was observed. But it did not take 
the Porte long to revert to its traditional tactics of taking 
back with one hand what it had been obliged to give with 
the other, and in 1889 the Pact, after being already 
violated in its spirit, was abrogated even in form. The 
British Government failed to enforce respect for its own 
work, and thence another tragedy of armed rebellion 
and remorseless suppression. The island submitted 
to a military dictatorship till 1894 ; and then the Powers 
tried to persuade the Sultan to observe his obligations, 
but with very indifferent success. In 1896 there occurred 
another rebellion, followed by another massacre. The 
Powers dissuaded Greece from taking action, with the 
promise that they would see to it. But while the 
authorities at Athens, in spite of the strong popular 
feeling for intervention, obeyed Europe's counsels of 
moderation, the authorities at Constantinople decided 
to quell the insurrection by their accustomed methods. 1 

The Cretans proved equal to the emergency : in 
every encounter with the Sultan's troops they had the 
best of it. Naturally, they were assisted with arms 
and men from Greece, through the agency of the Cretan 
Committee and the Ethnike Hetairia — a patriotic league 
of a semi-military, semi-academic character. By and 
by the Hellenic Government, yielding to public opinion, 
dispatched to Crete a torpedo flotilla under Prince George 
and an expeditionary corps under Colonel Vassos 
(February, 1897). This action precipitated matters. 
1 See Blue Book Turkey, 7 (1896). 



306 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Powers immediately interposed " in the interests of 
peace " and, while their ships and troops protected the 
Sultan's sovereignty over the island, their Chancelleries 
were busily engaged in the usual discussions as to the best 
way of dealing with " the recalcitrant Hellenes." Should 
Greece be coerced again by a blockade, or should she be 
left alone, to take the consequences of the enterprise 
on which she had embarked ? Opinions were divided 
for a while, but the latter view prevailed in the end. 
Lord Salisbury was loth to expose England again to 
the odium of arch-oppressor of the Hellenes, while 
Gladstone now hastened to retrieve in their hearts the 
position he had forfeited ten years earlier. From his retreat 
at Cannes, the ailing old statesman, almost with the last 
ounce of energy left in him, penned a long and eloquent 
manifesto, in which he stigmatized the short-sighted 
callousness of European diplomacy in the past, and 
pleaded for a more enlightened and humane attitude in 
the present. He reviewed England's unenviable record 
in the Eastern drama from 1 876-1 880, when she made 
herself the champion of tyranny, and demanded that she 
should atone for her crime by making herself now the 
champion of liberty. The Concert, he wrote, stood con- 
demned by its failure. It was time for us to have done 
with that " gross and palpable delusion "■ — " to shake 
off the incubus, and to remember, as in days of old, that 
we have an existence, a character, and a duty of our 
own." The gallant island of Crete was once more 
plunged in a struggle of life and death with the Ottoman 
Empire — the seventh in half a century : " It is not in 
human nature, except under circumstances of grinding 
and destructive oppression, to renew a struggle so 
unequal." The Porte by its consistent perfidy and 
cruelty had shown that it had " no title to retain its 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 307 

sanguinary and ineffectual dominion." He pointed to 
Greece as a shining example to the world : "a petty 
Power, hardly counting in the list of European States, 
suddenly takes its place in the midway of the conflict. 
But it was a Power representing the race that had fought 
the battle of Thermopylae and Salamis and had hurled 
back the hordes of Asia from European shores " — a 
champion small of stature, but great in spirit : a David 
facing six Goliaths. After some more of this sort of 
thing, he appealed from the Governments to the nations 
of Europe to save Greece from being punished for her 
pluck and to see justice done both to her and to Crete. 1 

This help in need restored Gladstone to the affections 
of the Hellenes. When next year he passed away, no 
one excelled them in the depth of their grief. His statue 
was at length set up, and the Greek newspapers wrote : 
We once misjudged this great man in blaming him for 
inconsistency. If he advocated the Bulgarian cause, he 
did so not because he loved Greece the less, but because 
he loved Freedom more. 

Gladstone's plea, however, produced no effect upon 
those in whom the power lay. The Radical Opposition 
espoused the Hellenic cause unofficially — and many 
progressive journalists urged Greece to an unequal 
contest in which they had no investment of cost or peril. 
Their rhetoric, assisted by the ignorance prevailing in 
Greece as to the relative strength of Fleet Street and 
Downing Street, only misled the Hellenes to their undoing. 

Had Greece been satisfied with her moral triumph 
and accepted Europe's assurances that, if by withdrawing 
her forces she averted war, Crete would not be suffered 
to relapse under the Turkish yoke, there is no doubt 

1 The Eastern Crisis. A Letter to the Duke of Westminster, 
Cannes, March 13, 1897. 



308 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

that she would have come out of it with an enormous 
access of prestige. Unfortunately for her, Greece failed 
to exploit her opportunity. Her King, mindful of the 
fate of his predecessor, never overstepped the bounds 
imposed by the most literal interpretation of the Con- 
stitution. He found it safer to reign than to rule. Nor 
was there at Athens any other power to act as a check on 
the impetuosity of popular sentiment. The death of 
Tricoupis on the eve of this grave national crisis had 
deprived the country of the one statesman whose sober 
judgment, wide experience, and independence of char- 
acter might have supplied the needed restraint. Dely- 
annis, the Premier at the time, was little better than a 
demagogue : a politician who, with all his patriotism 
and honesty, dared not go counter to the stream to 
which he owed his position. So neither the Crown nor 
the Cabinet had the courage to tell the people that they 
were unready for vindicating their just claims by the 
sword ; and Greece, under the irresponsible spur of the 
Ethnike Hetairia, galloped headlong into the abyss. 

Turkey, in the interval, had had ample time to con- 
centrate her army on the Greek frontier. Her forces, 
vastly outnumbering those of her opponent and led by 
the brains of the greatest military Power in the world' 
easily overcame the ill-conditioned Hellenic troops, 
marched to Volos, and would have marched to Athens 
itself had not the crowned heads of Europe, anxious 
to preserve a dynasty so closely allied to the reigning 
houses of England, Russia, and Germany, stepped in 
to rescue Greece from the worst consequences of her 
heroic folly. 

For the same reason they felt that it would be in- 
expedient to thrust Crete back under the Moslem yoke. 
Something had to be done for the unfortunate and 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 309 

indomitable islanders. The only question was, how 
much, or rather how little. With this question European 
diplomacy dallied for a year, until Turkey's brutal 
stupidity came, as it had often done before, to defeat 
the exertions of her advocates, and, by one of those grim 
jokes which the gods love, to subserve the cause of 
justice. While the Great Powers were deliberating, 
the Turks planned a massacre, and were ill-advised 
enough not to confine themselves to the slaughter of 
Greeks, but attacked the British garrison in Candia. 
That, of course, was more than England could put up 
with ; and the Sultan's troops were forthwith cleared 
out of the island bag and baggage (Nov. 14, 1898). 

The international forces remained to see that the 
Sultan's suzerainty suffered no damage. But Crete was 
endowed with an autonomous constitution, and the 
Greek Prince George was appointed High Commissioner. 
He landed on the 21st of December amid enthusiastic 
demonstrations of joy, the islanders seeing in his appoint- 
ment an earnest of ultimate national rehabilitation : 
it was easier to uproot the island from the Mediterranean 
than to tear from its heart the longing for union with the 
mother country. Europe had already grasped this 
fact ; but the mills of diplomacy grind exceeding slowly. 
Ten years more had to elapse before the international 
occupation was withdrawn, and even then the Cretans 
were denied the consummation of their desires. Young 
Turkey had just regained, temporarily, in Europe some 
of the esteem Old Turkey had forfeited ; and the Powers 
which sanctioned the complete emancipation of Bulgaria 
(1908) would not hear of the complete emancipation 
of Crete. For four years the island held a position unique 
in the annals of the world : the position of a country 
without a political status. It formed no longer part of 



310 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

the Ottoman Empire, nor yet of the Hellenic Kingdom. 
Internally it was administered in the name of the King 
of the Hellenes ; externally it was regarded as subject 
to the Sultan of Turkey ; and commercially it was 
treated by both states as belonging to neither. This 
sorry farce was brought to an end by the Balkan War 
of 1 912, one of the many fruits of which was the final 
fusion of the island with Greece. 

Meanwhile, Greece had had to discharge the bill for 
her Cretan adventure. It was a very heavy bill, including 
a rectification of frontiers in favour of Turkey, the pay- 
ment of a war indemnity of £4,000,000, and the subjection 
of Greek finances to a foreign Commission of control. 
Greece bore her burden with the stoicism that comes of 
habit. She had always supplied the sinews of war to 
the insurgent Cretans, and after each bid for freedom 
she had entertained tens of thousands of destitute refugees. 
Costly as those insurrections had proved to the Turkish 
Treasury, they had proved ruinous to the Hellenic. 
It was in order to meet one of these periodical drains on 
her meagre resources that Greece contracted her first 
foreign loan, and one-third of the whole public debt 
which led to the bankruptcy of the kingdom and its 
subjection to foreign control arose out of the same cause. 
It may be said, without exaggeration, that Greece for 
seventy years had retarded her own development to 
promote the deliverance of Crete, as a mother stints 
herself to feed a beloved daughter. 

But more grievous than the loss of money and territory 
was the loss of prestige which the Hellenic Kingdom had 
sustained in the eyes of the world. Nothing fails like 
failure, and a bankrupt has no friends. Greece was, 
of course, by no means the first country which failed to 
meet its financial obligations during the nineteenth 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 311 

century, 1 nor was she the one that had the worst excuse 
for her failure. Yet, just because that economic failure 
arose from idealistic rashness, it provoked more than the 
usual amount of reproach, especially among the usurers 
who had contributed to it. 2 

Englishmen who had never professed a high opinion 
of the Hellene, or any very great faith in his destiny, felt 
surer than ever that the Bulgar was the right horse : 
" With him," wrote an eminent scholar and traveller in 
1902, " the future of the Balkans seems to rest. The 
Greek has, and will always have, a present." 3 This was 
a perfectly consistent attitude, of which the Greeks could 
not and did not complain. But they were very deeply 
hurt by the attitude of Englishmen from whom they had 
expected quite different treatment. Thousands of fair- 
weather friends who would have rushed to proffer their 
homage to Hellas had she achieved success, deserted 
her in her distress. This was particularly noticeable 
among English Radicals. With a few exceptions, they 

1 Here axe a few examples : Prussia (1807 and 1813) ; Austria 
(1802, 1806, 1811, 1816, 1818) ; Spain (1820, 1834, 1851, 1867, 
1872, 1882) ; Russia (1839) ; Turkey (1875) ; Portugal (1837, 
1852, 1892) ; Holland (1844) ; for a fuller list see Max von 
Heckel's Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft, ii. 457. 

2 The series of military budgets and expensive mobilizations 
which bled the Hellenic Exchequer were necessitated by the 
incessant efforts for national unity, and the foreign loans by which 
successive deficits were covered were obtained on usurious terms : 
of one of these only 87 per cent, actually went to Greece, of 
another only 72, and of a third only 67. So that the real interest 
(as distinct from the nominal) ranged between 5! and 6 per cent. 
The Cabinets of the Protecting Powers saw to it that the loan of 
1898 was granted on exceptionally favourable terms : interest 
■z\ per cent, and issue above par. This unwonted generosity, 
coupled with some other circumstances, gave colour to the theory 
that the mysterious inaction of the Hellenic navy and the phenom- 
enal collapse of the Hellenic army in the Greco-Turkish war of 
1897 were due, in part at least, to a secret compact between the 
great Powers and King George. 

3 D, G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, 192. 

/ 



312 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

renounced all connexion with their unhappy client, 
threw on her the whole blame of the folly which they 
had encouraged her to commit, and redoubled their 
assiduity in courting her more astute rival. 

After such an exhibition of English chivalry, one 
would scarcely have been surprised if no spark of sym- 
pathy had been left in the Hellenic heart for this country. 
Yet the people which has so often been charged with 
fickleness, was perhaps the one people on earth that 
adhered to England during the black era of the Boer War. 
While the Press of every other country poured forth 
rivers of hate upon the British Empire, sparing not even 
the sex of its aged sovereign, the Greek newspapers 
mourned England's losses, young Greeks offered them- 
selves as volunteers to the British Minister and Consuls, 
and even humble Greek bootmakers, unable to contribute 
anything bigger to the fund raised for the English wounded, 
contributed boots made with their own hands. 1 

Gladstone in 1897 said that the Conservative policy 
of Lord Salisbury " had weakened Greece, the most 
liberal of the Eastern communities," * to please Turkey. 
We may add that the Liberal policy, both before and 
after that date, has been to vilify Greece in order to help 
Bulgaria. 

We have seen that the Hellenic Kingdom started upon 
its career mutilated and unable to rest until it accom- 
plished the union of all the Hellenes under one flag. 
Part of this Panhellenic inheritance was Macedonia — or 
rather that portion of the country loosely designated 
by this name which is inhabited by people Greek either 
in race or in national aspiration. So long as Thessaly 
continued under the Ottoman rule, Macedonia naturally 

1 For a touching instance see my Tale of a Tour in Macedonia 
58. 2 Morley's Gladstone, iii. 525. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 313 

took a subordinate place in the Panhellenic programme. 
But with the liberation of the nearer province in 1880 
that of the remoter had assumed a growing prominence. 
Greece, however, was not the only claimant in that field. 

Bulgaria also had arisen mutilated and with a mission- 
ary programme as militant as the Greek. By the abortive 
Treaty of San Stefano practically the whole of Macedonia 
had been assigned to the Bulgars, and ever since the 
Treaty of Berlin the aim of their foreign policy was to 
conquer the territory of which the latter diplomatic 
arrangement had deprived them. This object the Sofia 
Government pursued by a semi-ecclesiastical, semi- 
educational propaganda already in existence before 
1878 , but it was after the annexation of Eastern Rumelia 
in 1885 that it devoted itself to the work with special 
vigour . 

Besides the Greeks and the Bulgars, & ^e were the 
Serbs, claiming a share of the Macedonian spoils. The 
upshot was a triangular feud marked by all the bitterness 
and unscrupulousness which characterize national feuds. x 
Each mission strove to prepare the ground by what 
they called " moral action " until the pear became 
ripe ; and each endeavoured to turn the Sultan's varying 
attitudes towards the others to its own advantage : 
thereby playing into the Sultan's hand, and indefinitely 
postponing the liberation of the country. The Greek 
statesman Tricoupis attempted, in 1891, to bring about, 
by reciprocal concessions, an alliance of the three States 
against the common enemy, and an amicable partition 
of the Macedonian territory. His proposal found some 

1 I have dealt with this distressful subject in detail elsewhere : 
" The Macedonian Problem and its Factors," Edinburgh Review, 
Oct., 1901 ; " The Macedonian Maze," Quarterly Review, April, 
1903 ; " Macedonia and the Powers," ibid. Oct., 1903. 

x 



314 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

favour in Servia, which, like Greece, was content with a 
section of the pear ; but Bulgaria, aspiring to the whole 
of the fruit, not only rejected the Greek overtures, but 
hastened, by a gross breach of international faith, to 
denounce them to the Sultan, and got as her reward 
additional privileges for her propaganda. 

The feud went on, every year gaining in intensity 
what it lost in respectability ; and in this arena Greece 
had the mortification of finding England more than ever 
hostile to her aspirations ; for here the Liberals, since 
1885, were united with the Conservatives, their pro- 
Bulgarian sentiments receiving fresh impetus from the 
Hellenic failure of 1897. 

English hostility to Greek aims in Macedonia reached 
its height in the period (1 904-1 908) when the Greco- 
Bulgarian antagonism attained its depth of indecency. 
In those four years the Greeks, like the Serbs, following 
the example of the Bulgars, added to their scholastic 
mission a terrorist side ; and the Macedonians who 
refused to listen to the schoolmaster were made to reckon 
with the komitaji. That the Greeks had been forced to 
adopt these atrocious tactics by the Bulgars, and in sheer 
self-defence, was a circumstance which English statesmen 
persisted in ignoring : as they always do whatever does 
not happen to suit their book, no matter if the truth can 
be established by a reference to English Blue Books. 1 
More offensive to the Greeks than the disingenuous tenor 
of English diplomacy, because more obtrusive, was the 
tone of the English Press. Suppression of things true, 
invention of things that were not true, systematic mis- 
representation of facts and figures — all the shady tricks 

1 See especially Turkey, 1 (1903) — a volume of 359 Consular 
and Diplomatic dispatches most enlightening to any one who 
wishes for light. 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 315 

of the attorney who wants to win his case at any price- 
were employed to procure in every case that arose the 
acquittal of the Bulgar and the condemnation of the 
Greek by the easily-deluded jury we call public opinion. 
To English writers and readers the solution of the Balkan 
Question had become a synonym with a Bulgarian triumph. 
" Our Correspondent in the Balkan Peninsula " meant 
simply our correspondent at Sofia — posted there to 
transmit only such news and views as were agreeable to 
the Bulgarian Government and the British Foreign 
Office. And in the pernicious, because one-sided, Anglo- 
Bulgarian organization which disguised its true character 
under the plausible name " Balkan Committee," the 
Hellenic cause found its most zealous detractors. 

The brilliant success of Greece against Turkey and 
Bulgaria in the wars of 1912 and 1913 went some way 
towards raising her in English estimation : the beaten, 
the bankrupt nation — the nation whose obituary saga- 
cious journalists had composed fifteen years before — 
was not, after all, dead : far from it. The ranks of the 
few Philhellenes who had remained steadfast to Greece 
in the days of her adversity were reinforced by fresh 
recruits. But, for all that, English Philhellenism is, 
and must be, a very anaemic plant. Political considera- 
tions apart, temperamentally the average Greek is not 
congenial to the average Englishman. Unemotional, 
unintellectual, and inarticulate himself, John Bull does, 
not take kindly to a race so highly marked by the opposite 
traits. He distrusts the Greek's demonstrativeness, 
is made uncomfortable by his analytical subtlety of 
thought, and is irritated by his abundance of words. 
English admiration for the Greek mind and character 
has never been a spontaneous passion, but a laboriously 
acquired taste : limited for the most part to scholars, 



316 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and even with them seldom going beyond the limit of a 
vicarious and reflected sentiment. The English student 
of classical antiquity at best likes the modern Greek not 
for his own sake, but for the sake of his forefathers, 
seeing in him less a living individual than a symbol of 
the spirit which he has been taught from early youth 
to worship. And the amusing thing is that the spirit in 
question is worshipped under a misapprehension. A 
myth of " classic repose," of all but superhuman personal 
beauty and intellectual loftiness, has been evolved out 
of the artistic and literary monuments of Hellas : and 
that idealistic conception is naively accepted as a true 
and typical representation of Hellenic life in the past: 
pretty much as if a Frenchman, after studying only 
the plays of Shakespeare and the essays of Bacon, went 
away with the impression that every Elizabethan English- 
man was a poet and a philosopher. The fact, of course, 
is that the ancient Hellenes, taken as a whole, differed 
very little from the modern Hellenes — so little that, 
were an ordinary English scholar, by some miracle, 
transported to the Athens of Pericles, he would return 
home not much more favourably impressed with its 
inhabitants than he is after a visit to the Athens of King 
Constantine. 

This incompatibility of temperament reveals itself 
even in the works of travellers friendly to Greece. They 
are more interested in her ancient stones than in her 
modern sons. Try as they may, they cannot forgive 
modern Greece for not being ancient Hellas — the mythical 
Hellas of their unrealistic imagination. To the physical 
beauties of the country, its serene skies and pure-lined 
landscapes, they pay the homage prescribed by con- 
vention. But for its people they rarely have anything 
warmer than the faint approbation which is more galling 



ENGLAND AND GREECE 317 

than unqualified condemnation. As to the avowed 
haters of that people, they have never hesitated to paint 
it in the blackest hues that rancour could provide, laying 
stress on its defects and denying it any merits, describing 
its strivings after national unity as contemptible displays 
of national cupidity or vanity, and presenting it to the 
English reading public as a set of wicked disturbers of 
the peace of Europe. Even the responsible agents of 
the British Government have not always been proof 
against this petulant and arrogant disposition. By 
their unsympathetic and overbearing manner they have 
often lessened in Greek eyes the value of England's 
benevolent acts and unnecessarily accentuated the 
inevitable effects of her unfriendly ones. The mischief 
done by some of these most undiplomatic diplomatists 
could not easily be computed, but it could only too easily 
be illustrated. 

Whether viewed from an official or from an unofficial 
standpoint, the intercourse of Great Britain with the 
Hellenic race, since its political rebirth, will, on the 
whole, be remembered for its blunders. 

However, the Hellenes have never quite lost their old 
regard for England. Whatever disillusions they may 
have experienced, they still find cause to look up to the 
land of Byron. But their attitude is no longer that of 
enthusiastic adorers, it rather partakes of that sober, 
business spirit which sets debit against credit, strikes 
the balance, and makes an entry of a moderate figure 
on the credit side of the account. 



Chapter IV 

FRANCE AND GREECE 

WE saw the influence which the French Revolution 
had upon the Greek mind, and the extent to 
which it inspired the movement that led to the indepen- 
dence of a portion of Greece. Contrariwise, France, 
recognizing in that movement an echo of French liberalism* 
acclaimed it with the pride of a teacher who sees a pupil 
respond to his tuition, and, by a psychological process 
not uncommon in such cases, ended by believing that 
the freedom of Greece was her own work. This, of 
course, was only a pleasing illusion. With the best will 
in the world, it would be impossible to affirm that the 
share of France in the Greek struggle for liberty was very 
much greater than that of England. There were French 
volunteers in the ranks of the Greek insurgents just as 
there were English volunteers ; and French artists 
and writers did no less than their colleagues across the 
Channel to foster the spirit of Philhellenism : the famous 
painter Eugene Delacroix depicted with wonderful 
feeling the massacre of the population of Chios, and his 
" Greece Lamenting on the Ruins of Mesolonghi " — 
one of several works exhibited for the benefit of the 
patriots in 1826 — did as much for the cause of Hellas 
in Paris as Byron's poetry had done in London, Victor 
Hugo's pen also contributed to the popularity of the 

313 



FRANCE AND GREECE 319 

same cause ; and many minor men of letters laboured 
to a like end. Passing from private to public circles, 
we see General Maison dividing with Admiral Codrington 
the honour of cleansing the Morean shambles. But as 
in England so in France popular sentiment was curbed, to 
a very considerable degree, by political interest. 

Nor did Greece, after her liberation, lack in France, 
as elsewhere, her critics and calumniators. The failure 
of the new realm to fulfil the absurd expectations of the 
sentimentalists who fancied that, with the extinction of 
Turkish misrule, Hellas would, in some supernatural 
way, become the Hellas of Plato and Praxiteles, very soon 
produced among Frenchmen that extravagant pessimism 
which is the natural offspring of extravagant optimism. 
Edmond About's satires of the modern Hellenes kept 
Europe laughing for years ; x but they were not appre- 
ciated at Athens. 

! On the other hand, the French Government very soon 
perceived the advantage of earning the goodwill of the 
new State that had sprung up in the Eastern Mediter- 
ranean, and missed no opportunity of exploiting Great 
Britain's blunders. While Lord Palmerston humiliated 
the Hellenic Kingdom on behalf of a fraudulent Israelite, 
Louis Napoleon endeavoured to screen it from the shafts 
and arrows of his neighbour , and, on failing, marked his 
displeasure and that of his country by recalling the French 
Ambassador from London. 

In consequence of an unusual concurrence of circum- 
stances, the interests of France coincided, for a short 
time, with the interests of England, and the two Powers 
combined to frustrate the national aspirations of Greece 

1 See La Gr&ce Contemporaine and Le Roi des Montagnes : two 
works which seem to exhale through every page the choicest 
aroma of Gallic wit and spitefulness. 



320 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

in 1854. But the normal antagonism quickly revived, 
and in 1858 the French Government's agents in Crete 
openly took the part of the rebels, and encouraged them 
to look to France for support. A more sensational 
occasion for the display of Anglo-French rivalry was 
offered a few years later by the crisis which culminated 
in the deposition of King Otho (18 62 -18 6 4). At that 
time, the French Minister in the Greek capital, acting in 
concert with the Russian, did all he could to check the 
Anglophile fever, and to the English candidate opposed 
first the candidature of the Russian favourite, the Duke 
of Leuchtenberg, and then that of the French Due 
d'Aumale. France on that issue came off second best — 
she had no Ionian Isles to bait her hook with. But it 
was not long before the terms were reversed. 

Early in 1866 the Cretans began one of their recurrent 
attempts to shake off their chains. France made use of 
this rising to conciliate the affections both of the islanders 
and of their continental kinsmen ; and on the 27th of 
December, 1866, M. de Moustier, French Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, proposed to the British Charge d'Aff aires 
in Paris the cession of Crete to Greece, adding that " were 
he the Sultan, he would not hesitate to abandon also 
Thessaly." It will be noticed that the proposal was 
only a copy of the policy which Lord Russell and Lord 
Palmerston had contemplated in 1862. But the Con- 
servative party now in power was animated by an en- 
tirely different spirit, and its object was to promote the 
interests of Turkey — as it understood them — rather than 
to win the affections of Greece. France did not desist 
from urging her views ; 1 and though, owing to British 
opposition, she achieved nothing for the Greeks, she 

1 See Lord Stanley to Lord Lyons, March 21, 1867, in Newton's 
Lyons, i. 164. 



FRANCE AND GREECE 321 

taught them henceforth to regard her as their staunchest 
friend. Behold, said French publicists — behold the 
difference between us and the English : We never falter 
in our Philhellenic sympathies and liberal principles ; 
our political interests in the East — interests much older 
than those of England — do not blind us to the claims of 
humanity. We are not egoists. True, English liberality 
has been occasionally extended to you ; but it was only 
the liberality of a cold-hearted and calculating patrician 
towards an importunate client, and it was not shown till 
after grievous suffering. At best the English — even the 
English Radicals — are utilitarians, and base their policy 
on interest alone, while we ! 

The Hellenes listened to these rodomontades attentively 
— as how could they help it, with Hobart Pasha's guns 
close at hand to illustrate the story ? That gallant 
seaman's exploits tarnished the gift of the Ionian Islands, 
and the obstinacy of the British Government in refusing 
to curtail the dominion of an unscrupulous and inefficient 
drone detested by the majority of mankind could not 
but be interpreted by the Hellenes as a demonstration 
of the French thesis, that the perfidious Albion was ready 
to subordinate every moral consideration to the pursuit 
of material ends : " L'Angleterre se permet toutes les 
entreprises " was the polite French for " England 
sticks at nothing. ' ' They believed in the disinterestedness 
of France, and showed their faith by the eagerness with 
which they espoused her cause in 1870, when many 
young Greek volunteers offered their lives in her defence. 

It is the candid writer's painful duty to demolish 
popular legends. The French Government did not base 
its policy on moral principles or on idealist sentiments 
any more than the British : it based it entirely on con- 
siderations of profit and loss. There may be some 



322 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

altruism in the actions of individuals ; in the actions 
of Cabinets there is none. In recommending the gratifica- 
tion of Hellenic claims France was thinking of the balance 
of power, not of the balance of justice. If proof were 
needed, the year 1878 supplied it. That year the clandes- 
tine Anglo-Turkish Convention about Cyprus aroused 
violent indignation in France ; and it was furiously 
demanded that the Republic should compensate itself 
for England's acquisition of Cyprus by seizing Chios, 
Rhodes, or Crete. That, however, did not prevent the 
French Government from gaining the gratitude of the 
Greeks, for had not its delegate at the Berlin Con- 
gress, M. Waddington, advocated their cause ? x 

Two years later the real character of French policy 
became manifest even to the least sceptical of Greek 
Francophiles. In 1880, when the question of Thessaly 
and Epirus was on the green cloth, the King of the 
Hellenes went to Paris with a view to stirring up Gam- 
betta to come to his assistance. Gambetta was profuse 
in his expressions of goodwill, apparently going so far as 
to assure his Majesty that France, with or without the 
co-operation of other Powers, would give Greece even 
military support. But all this was nothing more than 
the exuberance of an impulsive and generous nature, 
assisted by the anxiety of a Republican to please Royalty. 
Gambetta, it is true, was not actually in office at the 
moment. But everybody knew that Freycinet, who 
was, would do whatever Gambetta told him. Well, 
Freycinet not only forbore to help Greece himself, but 
even refused to co-operate with Granville and Gladstone 
in helping her. Small as was the encouragement that 
the Greeks received from that French Minister, his atti- 

1 Newton's Lyons, ii. 145, 159 ; Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, 
ii. 221. 



FRANCE AND GREECE 323 

tude was wildly Philhellenic when compared with that 
of M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, his successor at the Quai 
d' Orsay . Fear of ' Germany was said to be tying the hands 
of France: "They always try to act with Germany 
and have a horror of sending away a ship or a man unless 
Germany does the same : such is their confidence in 
the friendship they profess to believe in that they want 
always to be ready at the shortest notice to attack their 
friend or defend themselves from him." Another motive 
for inaction was jealousy of England : Frenchmen said 
that " France made the Crimean War pour Us beaux 
yeux de I'Angleterre and had better not repeat the 
experiment." x 

A politician in a panic is apt to do strange things. 
The Foreign Minister of France, terrified at the prospect 
of a disturbance of the status quo, assumed towards 
the parties in the Greco-Turkish dispute the role of a 
Pontiff, and he played that role with an absence of humour 
rare in a Frenchman. He scolded both litigants loftily, 
but he was particularly set on the moral education of 
Greece. In scathing language he enumerated to the 
Hellenes the sins of their Government since the Berlin 
Congress, branded their aspirations as " egoistical illu- 
sions," moralized to them on the awful wickedness of 
national selfishness, and exhausted all the resources of 
prolixity and pedantry in an endeavour to make them 
renounce aims which so many French statesmen had 
pronounced both legitimate and noble. 2 

St. Hilaire's hysterical preaching was scarcely less 
distasteful to the Hellenes than Palmerston's brutal 



1 Lyons to Granville, July 13, Oct. 4, 1880, Newton's Lyons, ii. 
226, 229. 

2 Mr. Arthur D. Elliot gives an amusing summary of this 
verbosa et grandis epistola in his Life of Lord Goschen, i. 205, 206. 



324 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

hectoring had been ; and the valuable assistance they 
received at the time from Great Britain eclipsed French 
influence at Athens. But what she lost in 1881 France 
was destined to recover four years later. 

In the interval the policy of the Republic in the Eastern 
Mediterranean had undergone a change. France was as 
anxious as ever to redress the balance of power which 
had been upset to her disadvantage by the English 
occupation of Cyprus and Egypt. But she had decided 
to seek such redress not at the expense of Greece — by 
the annexation from Turkey of Greek islands — but 
through Greece : by favouring the growth of the Hellenic 
Kingdom, and getting it under her influence. This new 
orientation of French policy became plain in 1885. 

That year the Bulgars, by throwing off the Tsar's 
leading-strings, deprived themselves of Russian support, 
and set France free to play her own cards in the Balkan 
game after her own fashion. The game has already been 
described. Greece claimed compensation for Bulgaria's 
aggrandizement. England led Europe in the coercion of 
Greece. France could not help Greece actively for 
obvious reasons ; but she signalized her Philhellenic 
sentiments by declining, alone among the Great Powers, 
to participate in the blockade, or in any of the diplomatic 
steps which led up to that exhibition of the Higher 
Hooliganism. 

The personal factor cannot be eliminated even from 
political equations, and the contrast between the repre- 
sentatives of France and England at Athens was as 
significant to Hellenic eyes as the contrast between 
their respective Governments. While Sir Horace Rum- 
bold did all he could to barb and envenom the British 
missiles, his French colleague M. de Moiiy — an agreeable, 
eminently cultivated scholar — pleaded for Greece with 



FRANCE AND GREECE 325 

something of the old-fashioned Philhellenic ardour. 

He did not treat her statesmen as pestilent visionaries, 

but encouraged them to resist arbitrary pressure, and 

after vainly striving to ward off the blow, managed by 

his sympathy to convince the Greek people that his 

country's non-intervention on their behalf was not due 

to want of will but simply to the superior might of 

circumstance. 

* * * * * 

Since that date all fluctuations in the attitude of France 
towards Greece ceased ; and she went seriously to 
work to assist the little State and defend it through good 
repute and ill, Rien de ce qui la touche ne nous laisse 
indifferents, declared the spokesmen of the Republic, 
and acted accordingly. In 1897, as we saw, the Cretan 
spectre, after receding into the shadows for an instant, 
had again stalked forward. Greece proved lamentably 
incompetent to lay it. But even in her failure she 
found France more anxious to console than to criticize. 
President Faure sent a message to King George assuring 
him that, crushing though the disaster appeared, he had, 
by his gallant effort to rescue Crete, acquired une hypo- 
theque qui lui assurait I'avenir. 

In the Macedonian Question the French attitude was 
the same as in the Cretan. Although France acknow- 
ledged that the Bulgars had as good a right to their 
national aspirations as the Hellenes had to theirs, she 
did not permit her sympathy with Bulgarian idealism to 
degenerate into an opposition to Hellenic idealism. 
With all the intellectual honesty that differentiates the 
French from the English mind, and the impartiality 
that becomes a third person in a dispute, France insisted 
on hearing both sides, and on giving to each its due 
weight. In 1878 shehad advocated Bulgaria's legitimate 



326 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

claim to existence. In the years that followed she 
condemned Bulgaria's exorbitant pretensions to supre- 
macy. And what has been said of French policy applies, 
naturally, also to the French Press. Even those French 
publicists , who supported the Bulgarian cause in Mace- 
donia most warmly never lost sight of the Hellenic side 
of the question : they had the candour to admit a fact 
which English Bulgarophiles deliberately overlooked — 
that racial or linguistic affinity is one thing, nationality 
another ; that every Macedonian who was of Slavonic 
descent or spoke a sort of Bulgarian dialect was not ipso 
jacto a Bulgar ; but that many Macedonians of that type 
were as good Greeks as the German-speaking inhabitants 
of Alsace were Frenchmen, and the French-speaking 
inhabitants of Jersey Englishmen. 1 

At the very moment when the anti-Hellenic propaganda 
in London attained its meridian through the efforts of 
the Balkan Committee, Paris witnessed the birth of the 
Ligue Franpaise pour la defense des droits de I'Hellenisme 
— a body including some of the most distinguished 
scholars and statesmen of the Republic. Prominent 
among these were the members of the archaeological 
French school at Athens. Whilst in Greece they studied 
the living as well as the dead, entered into intimate 
relations with the people, and returned home qualified 
to speak on the political and social conditions of the 
country with as much authority as they spoke of its 
ruins. 2 In these antiquarians Greece found some of the 
ablest exponents of her cause in the West, and France 
not the least effective promoters of her influence in the 
East. 

1 See, e.g. M. Victor Berard's La Macedoine, 25, 28. 

2 In 1909 I was privileged to supervise, at the request of the 
League, an English version of their valuable work Greece in 
Evolution. 



FRANCE AND GREECE 327 

The French Government, realizing, as always, that 
private enterprise, if it is to yield permanent results, must 
be organized and supported, has spared no pains to direct 
and stimulate the efforts of individuals. All those who 
labour to spread the influence of the Republic abroad 
merit and receive official rcognition : the monks no less 
than the scholars and the merchants. French friars are 
as active in the Levant now as they were in the days of 
the Monarchy ; but their activity has been purged of its 
old malignant spirit. The wafer is no longer rammed 
down the throats of Eastern Christians. Republican 
France is not at all anxious that the Greeks should learn 
to believe in the Filioque, in the Pope, or in Purgatory, 
being quite satisfied with their learning to speak and 
write the French language. In the lay schools scattered 
over the East, under the auspices of Paris, there is not 
even this faint tinge of a sectarian motive. These are 
founded and maintained for frankly political and com- 
mercial purposes. Politically they serve the interests 
of France by making the Greeks receive their ideas of 
Western nations and Governments through the medium 
of French books and newspapers ; commercially by 
making them prefer to deal with the manufacturers of the 
country whose tongue they know. The ordinary French- 
man — common opinion to the contrary notwithstanding 
— is a far worse linguist than the ordinary Englishman ; 
but he is endowed with a keener sense of self-interest : 
since he will not master other people's tongue, he furnishes 
them with the means of mastering his. 

Another consequence of this systematic dissemination 
of French culture among the Greeks has been to attract 
Greek students to France. Thousands of budding law- 
yers, physicians, engineers went to finish their education 
in the colleges of the Republic, while many Greek officers 



328 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

also joined the French army with a similar object in 
view. The presence of these young men assisted very 
materially to the consolidation of Franco-Hellenic 
friendship. Every year the Association of Greek Stu- 
dents in Paris celebrated the anniversary of Hellenic 
Independence with banquets at which French ambassa- 
dors and senators, academicians, men eminent in litera- 
ture, science, or art, emphasized the relationship between 
the Greek and Latin races — the community of their 
ideals and interests. Even the dim memories of a 
remote past have been invoked to contribute to this 
" union of hearts." Some years ago the town of Mar- 
seilles celebrated the twenty-fifth centenary of its 
foundation by the Greeks of Phocaea. The actual 
Greek colony in Marseilles took a leading part in the 
festivities ; the Hellenic Government, to give greater 
solemnity to the Greco-French jubilee, sent a squadron ; 
and a colossal Greek inscription was set up by the French 
authorities at the entrance to the port, commemorating 
the Hellenic origin of the city. 

More effective than these sentimental demonstrations 
in drawing the two nations together has been the sub- 
stantial assistance which Greece has derived from France 
during the last two decades. The disaster of 1897 had 
left the Hellenic Kingdom exhausted but sobered. It 
had taught the Greeks that the most ardent patriotism 
and the loftiest spirit of self-sacrifice is of little use with- 
out the patient and disciplined preparation which alone 
can bring a national cause to fruition. This was the 
view upon which Tricoupis had framed his administration 
a dozen years before, but his countrymen were not yet ripe 
for adopting it. M. Venizelos — the second serious states- 
man that modern Greece has produced — was fortunate 
enough to arrive at a time more propitious for the accep- 



FRANCE AND GREECE 329 

tance of such a prosaic view ; and under his direction 
the Greek State, after weathering a severe tempest, 
obtained the ballast of sense which was needed to counter- 
poise the wind of sentiment. 

The political Recovery (Anorthosis, literally " Setting 
Straight Again ") of 1909, was preceded and made pos- 
sible by an economic recovery for which the entire credit 
is due to the Greek people itself ; and in this work the 
chief share was borne by the Greek mercantile marine 
whose magnificent development has rendered it the 
principal source of national wealth. 1 Thanks to the 
industry, the intelligence, and the commercial intrepidity 
of her sons, Greece not only proved able to meet all her 
obligations, but, while meeting those obligations, grew 
richer and richer. 

During this period of preparation France rendered 
Greece many and valuable services. While shallow 
critics elsewhere agreed, after the failure of 1897, in pro- 
nouncing the Hellenic Kingdom a power, in a military 
sense, beneath contempt, to French judges it was evident 
that the failure was to be ascribed to the defects not of 
the Greek nation, but of the Greek administration. 
They knew that the Greek soldier had, together witn the 
faults inseparable from individualism and imagination, 
some fine qualities which have not always been found 
in better organized and better equipped armies : initia- 
tive, endurance, and limitless self-devotion. This they 
knew from personal experience. French officers of dis- 

1 The rapidity of this development is brought into startling 
relief by a comparison of dates and figures — 

Year. Greek Steamships. Tonnage. 

1875 . . 28 . . 8,240 

i9°i • • • 198 . . . 160,979 

!9i3 • ■ • 389 • • • 433.663 

See Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu, " La Grece, sa situation et ses 
perspectives," in the £conomiste frangais, Mars 15, 1913. 



330 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

tinction had from, the early 'eighties been engaged to 
reorganize the Greek military machine, and had 
hitherto seen their endeavours wrecked on the rock of 
political demoralization. Once more a French mission 
undertook the task, and, under the improved political 
conditions, it succeeded. But even with a replenished 
treasury and a reorganized army Greece would have 
hardly been able to carry through the two Balkan wars 
were it not for the advantageous treatment accorded 
her by the French financial market in 1910, and the 
advances made to her in 1912. 

Again, in the diplomatic negotiations which resulted 
in the Peace of Bucharest, France championed the 
Hellenic cause as if it were her own. Day after day Le 
Temps — the semi-official organ of the Quai d'Orsay, 
advocated the claims of Greece in articles which might 
have been written by a Greek patriot of the most extreme 
school. It was mainly thanks to the support of French 
diplomacy that Greece obtained Kavalla. Lastly, it 
was in France that Greece found the money she needed 
to discharge the provisional debts incurred by her two 
campaigns and to begin the administrative reform of 
the new territories : the first issue of the loan of liquida- 
tion of two hundred and fifty million francs was covered 
in Paris fifteen times (March 31, 1914). By this act 
France crowned her collaboration in the aggrandizement 
of the Hellenic Kingdom and, at the same time, affirmed 
her faith in its future. 



Chapter V 

RUSSIA AND GREECE 

THE Russians complain that they have done more for 
the Christians of the East and yet enjoy less 
influence over them than any other Power. The com- 
plaint is well founded. We have seen how, within seven 
years, Russia lost the allegiance of the Bulgarian State 
which she had literally created with her own blood. 
Nor have Servia and Rumania been more docile to their 
benefactor. It is not many years since the Tsar ad- 
dressed the little Prince of Montenegro as his one and 
only friend in the Balkans. All this is very disappoint- 
ing ; but whose the blame ? Nine-tenths of so-called 
ingratitude are due to the fact that the pride of the giver 
and the pride of the recipient cannot agree about the 
price of the gift. The Russians have always made 
the mistake of forgetting that the recipient has any 
pride at all. No benefactor is, or ever has been, more 
intolerably vexatious to his dependants than the Tsar. 
His attitude towards them is the attitude of a master 
towards a slave, and in return for favours conferred 
he exacts sacrifices of such magnitude and in such a 
manner as to cancel all recollection and deaden all sense 
of obligation. 1 

1 Some years ago I had the embarrassing experience of witness- 
ing an interview between a Russian and a Bulgarian diplomatist 
in Macedonia. The latter, having been guilty of a slight indis- 

331 



332 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Greeks never were in the position in which the 
Slavs and Rumans have found themselves. Yet, within 
the limits imposed by circumstances, they soon learnt 
that freedom from the Sultan purchased with Russian 
assistance had to be paid for in subjection to the Tsar. 
Admiral Orloff, in 1770, would only subsidize and arm 
those who swore allegiance to the Empress and engaged 
to become her subjects ; and, while he called upon the 
Greeks to risk their lives in the name of liberty, he 
treated them as serfs. The inhumanity of such a method 
of gaining friends and allies could only be exceeded by 
its imbecility. Two English writers have accurately 
described its inevitable results : " The Greeks, who 
had aspired at forming an independent State," says 
Finlay, " now perceived that even a successful insur- 
rection would only make them the slaves of the Czarina, 
instead of the rayahs of the Sultan ; and they knew 
that materially they would be no great gainers by the 
change." Byron, that faithful interpreter of the Greek 
spirit in all its phases, gave tongue to the feelings of 
Greek patriots in 1823 as follows — 

How should the autocrat of bondage be 
The king of serfs, and set the nations free ? 
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman 
Than swell the Cossack's prowling caravan, 
Better still toil for masters than await, 
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate. 

Besides these obvious considerations, other causes 
contributed to the early estrangement of the Hellenes 
from their Muscovite patrons. The Revolution of 
1 82 1 was an essentially nationalist movement. The 

cretion, was sent for and rated, in my presence and in the presence 
of an American journalist, by the angry Russian after a fashion 
that made me think of Squire Western speaking to his disobedient 
daughter. 



RUSSIA AND GREECE 333 

idea of creed, it is true, was not absent from the minds 
of the revolutionaries, but it was no longer a paramount 
idea : they fought for Orthodoxy against Islam, to be 
sure ; but they chiefly fought for Hellenism against 
Barbarism. This was what their school-bred poets 
preached, though the priests who shared in the struggle 
employed a different vocabulary. As time went on, 
the religious feeling which had drawn their grandfathers 
to the great Orthodox Power of the north was super- 
seded more and more by the feeling of race. A few old- 
fashioned folk continued to look upon the Tsar as their 
natural leader ; but the bulk of the Greek nation had 
come to regard him as their natural rival : the Russian 
claim to Constantinople was by itself sufficient to alienate 
them from Russia ; and would Russia be content with 
Constantinople alone ? 

The Petersburg diplomatists were perfectly aware 
of this change in the Hellenic point of view and trimmed 
their policy accordingly. Behind all the other reasons 
which induced the Russian Government to turn the 
cold shoulder to the insurrections it had instigated was 
the knowledge that the overthrow of the Turkish Empire 
through a Hellenic upheaval would result in the erection 
of a Greek Empire — a Power not disposed to receive 
its orders from Petersburg. Hence it did all it could 
to thwart the realization of the patriots' grandiose 
dream. When the Western Powers under the influence 
of Canning intervened on behalf of Greece in 1827, Russia 
proposed that, instead of creating one free Greece, there 
should be created a number of independent Greek pro- 
vinces — a proposal to which Canning replied : " The 
support of this country should never be given to any 
scheme for disposing of the Greeks without their con- 
sent." After the establishment of the Hellenic Kingdom 



334 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Russia's aim was to maintain an Ottoman Empire virtu- 
ally dependent upon her rather than let it be supplanted 
by a State which might in time rival her in strength and 
wealth. Count Nesselrode expressed these views in 
documents since made public. 

But it was as clear to Russian as to other statesmen 
that the maintenance of an Empire such as the Turkish 
could be nothing more than a temporary expedient. 
Even if the indefinite perpetuation of the Osmanli rule, 
however nominal, were desirable, it was not feasible. 
The question for Russian statesmanship was to provide 
a successor, or rather successors, who would be prepared 
to pay to the Tsar the obedience which could not be 
expected from the Hellenes. Such convenient vessels 
Russian statesmen found, or imagined that they found 
in the Sultan's Slavonic subjects. The exploitation 
of Balkan Slavs was, of course, not a new policy. So 
far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century 
Peter the Great's agents had been as busy among them 
as among the Greeks. While the Greeks weie fed with 
prophecies, said to have been discovered in the tomb 
of Co stantine the Great, which declared that the time 
had come when the Byzantine Empire was to be restored 
by the " blond race," Serbs and Bulgars were flattered 
with promises that they were to become the dominant 
element in a new Eastern Empire, as the sovereignty 
of Constantinople was about to pass into the hands of 
the Tsar of Russia — the head of all the Slavs. But it 
was not until after the Crimean War that this policy 
assumed a distinctly Slavonic colour. 

Under the inspiration of the racial doctrines which 
had spread throughout Europe by the middle of the 
nineteenth century, there arose in Russia the Pan- 
slavic school of thought : a semi-political, semi-academic, 



RUSSIA AND GREECE 335 

wholly militant movement actuated by the desire to 
liberate the Slavonic subjects of the Ottoman and Aus- 
trian Empires, and unite them under the aegis of Russia. 
In the eyes of the Panslavs the Greek was an enemy as 
much as the Turk. The Greek Church, in which Hellen- 
ism had its chief citadel, from a stepping-stone became 
a stumbling-block. Instead of supporting its unity, 
as it had hitherto done, Russian diplomacy should work 
for its disruption. By 1856 the Panslavs had succeeded 
in inoculating the Petersburg Government with their 
ideas, and the campaign against the Hellenic citadel 
began in earnest. 

It was carried on under the banner of Nationalism. 

The Arab-speaking Christians of Syria supplied one 
field for operations ; the Bulgarian- speaking Christians 
of the Balkan Peninsula supplied the other. The modus 
operandi in both was the same. By means of a literary 
propaganda the Russians strove to arouse among both 
populations a consciousness of their national indivi- 
duality, and a hostility towards the Hellenic influence : 
they should no longer allow themselves to be absorbed 
by the Hellene — serve as tools for his supremacy. Re- 
ligion was one thing, nationality another : they could 
continue being good Orthodox Christians without acknow- 
ledging any allegiance to an ecclesiastical institution 
permeated with alien spirit, animated by national ambi- 
tions which were not theirs, which were fatal to their 
existence as national entities. Such was the manifesto 
issued from the Panslav headquarters : the appeal to 
Arab and Bulgarian idealism was, of course, reinforced 
by less ideal means. Money, diplomacy, intrigue, intimi- 
dation were all employed without stint or scruple. 1 

1 For a detailed, though anything but exhaustive, account of 
these far-reaching and unremitting machinations, see Sir Horace 



336 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The most important achievement of this many-sided 
activity was the creation of an independent Bulgarian 
Exarchate as a rival to the Greek Patriarchate of Con- 
stantinople : a schism consummated, after a prolonged 
and bitter struggle, in 1872, as a prelude to the Bulgarian 
State which was founded six years later. General 
Ignatieff, the indefatigable commander-in-chief of the 
Panslavist forces, had dreamed of a Bulgaria extending 
through the major portion of the Balkan Peninsula, and 
he is reported to have said, when the San Stefano treaty 
was signed : " Now let the Greeks swim to Constanti- 
nople ! " 

Russia's favourable attitude towards their claims 
in Crete could not console the Greeks for her enmity 
everywhere else. Prince Gortchakoff, who was but a 
lukewarm Panslav, openly advocated the desirability 
of the island's union with the mother country, and the 
rebellion of 1 866-1 868 throughout its duration enjoyed 
the approval of Petersburg as much as it endured the 
disapproval of London. But the policy of General 
Ignatieff had left no room for gratitude in the Hellenic 
breast. Many Greeks in Turkey, having come to the 
conclusion that the Turk was a less dangerous enemy 
than the Russian, made common cause with the Young 
Turks and supported Midhat Pasha, preferring an Otto- 
man Constitution to a Russian Liberation : which, 
remarks the Tsar's representative at Constantinople, 
" creait un etat de choses curieux." x 

The Greco-Turkish crisis of 1 880-1 881 offered the 
Hellenes another opportunity for gauging Russia's dis- 

Rumbold's Recollections, ii. 321-327 ; my Tale of a Tour in Mace- 
donia (1903), ch. xxxix. ; and my " Panslavism in the Near East," 
in the Edinburgh Review, January, 1903. 

1 M. Nelidow's " Souvenirs d'avant et d'apres la Guerre de 
1877-1878," in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1915, p. 259. 



RUSSIA AND GREECE 337 

position towards them. At first the Petersburg Govern- 
ment appeared inclined to co-operate with England 
in enforcing the decisions of the Berlin Conference in 
their favour ; and the Russian Ambassador in London 
proposed to Lord Granville to furnish twenty thousand 
Russians for the purpose. But the project fell through : 
even if the English Liberals wished to face the possibility 
of an occupation of Constantinople by the Tsar's troops, 
there was not a single Power in Europe upon whose com- 
plaisance they could reckon. Besides, it is doubtful 
whether British public opinion, despite Gladstone's 
ascendancy at the moment, would have tolerated so 
desperate a remedy. On failing to exploit the situation 
for her own benefit, Russia left England alone to uphold 
the Berlin settlement : the coercion of Turkey for the 
sake of Greece had ceased to commend itself to her. 

In 1885, the unexpected departure of the Russian 
Minister at Athens to wait upon the Emperor at Livadia, 
in the Crimea, was interpreted by the Athenians as an 
indication of Russian support in their emergency ; and 
there is reason to believe that before his departure the 
Tsar's representative gave the Greek Premier hopes. 
But, though at that time Russia was angry with Bul- 
garia, she refused to assist her Hellenic rival. 

It was at that epoch that the Greeks, finding England 
on the side of their enemies, felt compelled to modify 
their Great Idea. In the half-century that had elapsed 
since the declaration of their independence new and 
formidable forces had sprung up to bar their expansion. 
The Slav masses of the Balkan Peninsula, once proud 
to be reckoned as " Greeks," had become conscious 
of their ethnical destiny. As Sir William White put it : 
" The Bulgarian has been created j and, though he may 
not be strong enough to hold the Straits, he will be 



338 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

quite strong enough to prevent the Greeks from doing 
so, " — and behind the Bulgar marched the Russian. 

The Greek statesman Tricoupis was clear-sighted 
enough to perceive the change in the position, and wise 
enough to adapt himself to it. " The object he had at 
heart," records one who knew him, " was rather to pre- 
serve to Hellenic culture and Hellenic influences those 
districts of Central and Southern Macedonia that were 
the last remnant of the splendid inheritance to which 
the Greeks of the Grande Idee not so long ago still laid 
claim. On one occasion he showed me on the map a 
line which he thought quite acceptable. All he looked 
for, he said, would be a tacit recognition of a right to 
moral action within this Hellenic sphere." x But even 
to this limited aspiration Russia was as hostile as Eng- 
land. In 1897 Petersburg used its power in the Concert 
against Greece, and it was only after her defeat had 
made her harmless that the Tsar came forward as the friend 
of the vanquished. It was on his initiative that Greece 
obtained on exceptionally equitable terms the foreign 
loan which enabled her to defray her war indemnity to 
Turkey, and that the Powers decided to entrust Prince 
George with the government of Crete. The Greeks 
expressed their gratitude to Russia for these services ; 
but — the aims of Panslavism are by the nature of things 
incompatible with the aims of Panhellenism ; and the 
Greek people had by that time grown so suspicious of 
Russia as to mistrust even her gifts. 

In the winter of 1 901 this deep-seated suspicion found 
a curious expression. For generations past men of 
letters in Greece had been divided on what has come 
to be known as the Language Question : the majority 
supporting " pure " Greek as the medium of public 
1 Sir Horace Rumbold, Final Recollections, p. 109. 



RUSSIA AND GREECE 339 

instruction, a sma 11 but noisy minority advocating the 
claims of " vulgar " Greek. Until that year this war 
about words had been waged with the appropriate 
weapon of words ; and the only fluid shed in its course 
was ink. 1 But suddenly the quarrel was transferred 
from the schools to the streets. Mass meetings were 
held in Athens, heads were broken, the Prime Minister 
was nearly murdered, and mob law was called in to 
settle a linguistic dispute. 

The immediate cause of this eruption was the appear- 
ance in a newspaper of a version of the New Testament 
into the vernacular. To many Greeks the publication 
was obnoxious on grounds of taste ; but what impelled 
the Athenian crowd to forget its habitual good temper 
and good manners so deplorably was a rumour that 
stirred its national susceptibilities to their depths. Pure 
Greek was regarded as a bond of racial unity ; the 
attempt to dethrone it was consequently an attempt 
inspired by the wish to bring about racial disunion. Cui 
bono ? The answer was obvious. The Queen had 
interested herself in a popular version of the Gospels 
for the benefit of the ignorant, and the Queen was a 
Russian by birth. No further evidence was needed : 
Panslavism was, as usual, endeavouring to destroy 
Panhellenism. Once this rumour obtained currency 
and credence, the literary merits of the question were 
utterly forgotten in its political bearings. University 
professors and party politicians, laymen and clergymen, 
students and shoeblacks, bound together by a common 
prejudice, rose like one man to defend the national 
cause against its enemies : real or imaginary. Such 
was the true origin of the " Gospel riots," which puzzled, 
scandalized, 2 id amused the academic world for some 

1 An early and rather entertaining example will be found in 
Holland, 173. 



340 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

weeks at the time. 1 The incident itself is trivial ; the 
causes which brought it about are in a high degree interest- 
ing and instructive. 

It was this Slavonic peril that again induced the 
Greeks in 1908 to support the Young Turks even more 
whole-heartedly than their fathers had supported them 
thirty years before. 2 The Young Turks failed to profit 
by Hellenic sympathy ; and Russia, through all the 
oscillations of her Balkan policy, never swerved from 
her fixed goal : directly or indirectly to subject the 
Peninsula to the domination of the Slavonic race. M. 
Isvolsky, during the Bosnian Crisis, once more enunciated 
the Russian programme : The Tsar's Government, he 
said, had clearly intimated to Bulgaria that its further 
relations with that State would depend, not on her con- 
duct in the past, but on her conduct in the future. So 
far as she might remain faithful to the solidarity of the 
other Slavonic States — Servia and Montenegro — she 
could rely on the Tsar's favour : " These three States 
must become imbued with the consciousness of the 
necessity of moral and political union. Our aim must 
be to bring them together." 8 

Three years later Russia succeeded in bringing them 
together. Greece joined the Servo-Montenegro-Bulgarian 
Alliance against Turkey : until Bulgaria's greed destroyed 
the union of a day and rekindled the feud of an age. 
Russia was very angry with the wilful and treacherous 
Bulgars ; but her anger against them did not make 
her any the more favourably disposed towards the 
Hellenes. As in 1885 so in 1913, she expressed her 
displeasure with one Slavonic State by espousing the 

1 See The Times and The Manchester Guardian, December, 
1901-February, 1902. 

2 See my Turkey in Transition, 84-85. 

8 Statement in the Duma, Dec. 24, 1908. 



RUSSIA AND GREECE 341 

cause of another. At the Conference of Bucharest her 
game was to support Servia's claims against Buigaria, 
and Bulgaria's claims against Greece. Had it rested 
entirely with the Tsar, Kavalla would have gone to 
Bulgaria. It went to Greece thanks to France. The 
Treaty of Bucharest was the result of a compromise 
between the two Powers : France, who cared little for 
Servia, backed her as against Bulgaria, and in return 
obtained Russia's acquiescence in the gratification of 
Greek claims. 

The Greeks understood the situation perfectly. During 
the whole of the last half-century they had found the 
Petersburg Government undermining the prestige and 
power of Hellenism in every quarter : from Mount 
Athos to the Mount of Olives. A Greek bishop, in a 
work which made its appearance at that moment, gave 
utterance to the feelings of his countrymen as follows — 

" The wounds inflicted upon the body of the Greek 
Church, during many centuries, by the propagandas 
from the West are nothing compared with the wounds 
opened by our co-religionists in the North. No doubt 
this policy has so far been very helpful to Russia's east- 
ward advance ; but, viewed from a wider standpoint, 
it appears as a deplorable failure for Russia's own real 
interests. The Hellenes no longer see in Russia a generous 
protector of Orthodoxy, nor a disinterested friend of 
Hellenism. So far from going through a period of 
senile decay [one of the Panslav arguments against the 
Greek pretensions to leadership], they have been able, with 
God's help, to hold their own until this day, so glorious 
for the Hellenic nation. As to the future, God is good." x 

The statement does not err on the side of exaggeration. 

1 To Hagion Oros kai he Rosikd Politikd en Anatoli. By 
Meletios Met.a^aki§ ; Metropolitan of Kition (Athens, 1913), p. 73. 



Chapter VI 

THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 

OF all the nations that opposed their emancipation 
the Austrian for a long time was the most 
odious to the Hellenes. Other Powers might have 
shown their hostility by refusing to assist them. Austria 
showed it by actively persecuting them. In 1798 the 
great patriot-poet Rhigas went to Vienna, to solicit 
aid for the liberation of his country, and the Government 
of the Hapsburgs had the unexampled baseness to seize 
and surrender him to the Turks, who tortured him to 
death. Again, in 1821, when the Moldavian insurrection 
was crushed, Prince Ypsilantis escaped into Transylvania ; 
but instead of the sanctuary he hoped to find, he found 
an Austrian dungeon. Throughout the Hellenic struggle 
Metternich acted as the Sultan's ally, and the Austrian 
Minister at Constantinople, if he did not advise, certainly 
did not discourage the wholesale massacres by which 
the Porte tried to suppress the rebellion. 

Alarmed by Russia's action in 1828, Metternich modified 
his attitude and advocated, as a matter of expedience, 
the cause he detested on principle. But the Greeks, 
who had not been cowed by Austria's enmity, remained 
unmoved by this display of her favour. They knew 
that Metternich was not their friend. His denunciations 
of liberals and reformers everywhere and at all times 

342 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 343 

had stamped him for ever as the enemy of freedom. 
For such a statesman and such a State they could nourish 
no other feeling than that of intense abhorrence. 

By the middle of the century the Hapsburgs, yielding 
to necessity, changed their political creed completely, 
and after 1867 no one could accuse them of ignoring 
the rights of nationalities more than is unavoidable in a 
heterogeneous empire like theirs. But, unfortunately 
for the Hellenes, this newborn liberalism manifested 
itself, not on their behalf but on behalf of their Bulgarian 
rivals. The Vienna Cabinet, actuated as always by 
jealousy of Russia's growing power in the Balkan Penin- 
sula, espoused, in 1870, the Bulgarian cause : " Count 
Andrassy vainly imagining that he could compete in it 
with Russia, and thus acquire a lead with an important 
section of the Southern Slavs still subject to Turkey." 1 

In the crisis of 1880-1881 the Austrian Government 
strongly disapproved of the Greek claims to Thessaly 
and Epirus, and only thought of a settlement that would 
give the maximum of satisfaction to the Turks. When 
Goschen reached Constantinople, he found the Austrian 
Ambassador there a confirmed Turcophile. As the 
negotiations progressed, or rather failed to progress, 
the Vienna Government refused to budge from its anti- 
Hellenic position. Austria, reported the British repre- 
sentative in the capital of the Dual Monarchy, was pre- 
pared to play the part of mediator and no more ; and 
the British Foreign Secretary's rejoinder that Austria 
was, in common with the other signatories to the Treaty 
of Berlin, fully committed to a large rectification of the 
Greek frontier, produced little effect. 2 

When in 1885 Bulgaria tore up the Treaty of Berlin 

1 Sir Horace Rumbold's Recollections, ii. 324. 

2 A. D.^Elliot's Life of Lord Goschen, i. 217, 230. 



344 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

and upset the balance of power in the Balkans by annexing 
Eastern Rumelia, the Vienna Government took up a 
strongly anti-Bulgarian attitude, partly because at 
that time it had Bulgaria's rival Servia under its tutelage 
and partly because it failed to realize that the Bulgarian 
coup d'etat was a coup de grace to Russian influence over 
the Principality. But this truth, though very slowly, 
dawned at last on Austrian diplomatists, and, after 
trying to dissuade Prince Ferdinand of Coburg from 
accepting the Bulgarian throne, the Court of Vienna 
ended by supporting him, with England, against Russia 
in 1889. 1 Even while still hostile to the Bulgars, Austria 
remained unfriendly to the Greeks, and, in 1885, Count 
Kalnoky absolutely declined to listen to the explanations 
by which King George's representative attempted to 
justify the line pursued by his Government. 2 

It is true that, in 1896, Count Goluchowski expressed 
the opinion that the blame for the crisis lay entirely 
with the Turks, and that it would be impossible for 
Greece to stand aloof if acts of savagery took place in 
Crete, adding that, under such circumstances, she would 
probably have much European sympathy on her part.* 
But this platonic approval could not, and did not, impress 
the Hellenes ; for both in Macedonia and in Epirus they 
found Austria consistently and systematically opposed 
to their efforts at expansion. In the latter province 
it has long been the Vienna Government's policy to 
foster the nationalist movement of the Southern Alban- 
ians ; in the former to vie with Russia in the support of 
the Slavonic element against the Hellenic. And under 
all these manoeuvres the Greeks have since 1878 dis- 



1 See Blue Book Affairs in the East, 3 (il 

8 Sir Horace Rumbold's Final Recollections, 49. 

* Blue Book Turkey, 7 (1896). 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 345 

cerned the Austrian desire, sooner or later, to reach the 
.ZEgean by the absorption of all the lands between the 
Danube and Salonica. 

Apart from their unfortunate experience of King Otho 
and his Bavarians, during the first five decades of their 
modern history the Greeks came into contact with Ger- 
many through the action of German scholarship rather 
than of German statesmanship, and the contact was not 
of a nature to develop any very great cordiality on either 
side. Their war of independence had evoked a good 
deal of enthusiasm among German University professors 
and students, and many of the latter hastened io assist 
in the struggle for the regeneration of Hellas. But they 
distinguished themselves chiefly by the ease with which 
they allowed reality to kill their idealism, and by the 
alacrity with which they hastened back from a country 
which fell so terribly short of their standards of moral 
sublimity and material comfort : the Greeks were un- 
grateful, their lodgings bad, their cooking execrable. 
Such was the burden of the lamentations with which 
many a would-be German hero returned to the Father- 
land. 1 

But that was not the worst. At the very moment 
when the patriots were on the point of gathering in the 
fruits of their long struggle (1830), a German professor 
undertook to prove that the Greeks were not Greeks, 
but Slavs : that they had obtained so much sympathy 
from Western Philhellenes under false pretences. Now 
this paradox, for which Fallmerayer got the credit, was 

1 Finlay, then studying at a German University, heard these 
dithyrambs of disillusion and was so much impressed by them 
that he became himself a Greek revolutionary in a small way. 
See his "Adventure during the Greek Revolution," in Black- 
wood's Magazine, November, 1842. 



346 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

not really his own. Twenty years before an English 
merchant of Constantinople had attempted to rob the 
Greeks of their pedigree ; * but the opinions of a merchant 
on a question of that nature attracted no more attention 
than they deserved. Besides, Thornton's work had 
made its appearance whilst Philhellenism was still in 
its infancy. Fallmerayer's came out at a time much 
more favourable to notoriety. His theory, supported 
by a copious, if not very profoundly critical, appeal to 
documents, not only made all European Philhellenes 
look foolish, but carried conviction to many scholars 
richer in book-learning than in reasoning power, and, 
through them, to that vast class of "general readers" 
who, devoid of scholarship themselves, are apt to over- 
rate it in others. Later investigations, led by another 
German professor, Carl Hopf , have reduced Fallmerayer's 
discovery to the level from which it should never have 
been lifted. It is now recognized that, with whatever 
alloy of foreign elements, the modern inhabitants of 
Hellas are in point of blood very largely the descendants 
of her ancient inhabitants ; and in point of mind and 
character wholly so. If this spiritual descent is not 
proved by their achievements, it is by their failings. 
But meanwhile much mischief was done ; for the 
effect of the Munich professor's work endured long after 
its foundations had been exploded. That a hypothesis 
on the remote past of a race should affect its future may 
sound more paradoxical than Fallmerayer's theory. 
But as the popularity of the Greeks was, in a very great 
measure, due to the belief in their lineal descent from 
the authors of the Parthenon and the heroes of Marathon, 
this plausible attack on their pedigree had a corresponding 

1 See Thomas Thornton's Present State of Turkey (2nd ed., 
1809). 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 347 

influence over the world's attitude towards them : upon 
such slender threads sometimes hang a small nation's 
destinies. x 

The Greeks never forgave the learned German the 
harm he did them, and to this day find it difficult to 
imagine that he could have acted from any but mercenary 
motives. They suspect that he must have been in the 
pay of their enemies. They do not know the fascination 
which theorizing for its own sake has for a certain type 
of intellect : they only know that the Panslavs still 
cite Fallmerayer as a witness to the scientific and historical 
basis of their political pretensions. 

On the other hand, the laborious devotion of German 
scholars to the study of their ancient and mediaeval 
literature did much to imbue the Greeks with respect 
for " learned Germany " (sophe Germania), and it soon 
became the fashion among their philologists to go to her 
universities as to oracles of infallible wisdom in all that 
pertains to classical lore. For, after all, if there is one 
thing the Hellene loves more than the pursuit of wealth, 
it is the pursuit of knowledge, and the country with the 
best schools will always inspire him with greater venera- 
tion than the country with the biggest shops. 

Greco-German intercourse had reached this point 
when Prussia's accession to the hegemony of the Germanic 
race brought the two States into direct political contact. 

1 It is pleasant to turn from the pedantry of a merchant and 
the fancifulness of a scholar to the robust common sense of a 
poet. Byron, with reference to Mr. Thornton's work, asks 
" What can it import whether the Mainotes are the lineal Laco- 
nians or not ? or the present Athenians as indigenous as the bees of 
Hymettus, or as the grasshoppers, to which they once likened 
themselves ? What Englishman cares if he be of Danish, Saxon, 
Norman, or Trojan blood ? or who, except a Welshman, is 
afflicted with a desire of being descended from Caractacus ? " 
Athens, Jan. 23, 1811. 



348 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Bismarck's attitude towards Greece was frankly 
opportunist. During the Cretan crisis of 1866-1868, 
he tried in vain to persuade the British Government 
that even from its own point of view the best policy 
was a policy favourable to Greece. He told the English 
ambassador at Berlin that " the civil war in Crete could 
not continue without danger to other portions of the 
Ottoman Empire," and that, " if England would assist 
in obtaining the cession of Crete to Greece, all present 
difficulties in the East would be at once arranged." x 

Not less pliant to Greek claims the Iron Chancellor 
proved himself in the Greco-Turkish quarrel of 1 880-1 881. 
Goschen on his return to Constantinople stopped at 
Berlin, and the two statesmen went fully into the question 
of how the litigants should respectively be dealt with. 
Bismarck heartily endorsed the British ambassador's 
sentiment that no undue pressure should be put upon 
Greece — 

" I agree with you, Mr. Goschen," he said. " The 
Greeks ought not to be bullied (sic). The Turks, as the 
stronger Power, should be made soft." 

That material support ought to be given to Greece, if 
Turkey, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Powers, 
should attack her, Bismarck was prepared, and even 
eager, to admit. He flung out the suggestion with 
emphatic spontaneity — 

" If moral support did not suffice, why they must 
have immoral support." 

The defence of the Hellenic coasts was easy enough ; 
but what if the Turks invaded the kingdom across 
Thessaly ? 

Bismarck's answer was prompt and to the point — 

1 See Lord A. Loftus's Diplomatic Reminiscences, Sec. Ser. i. 
187. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 349 

" If international troops could not be landed, at all 
events Greek troops could be put on board the inter- 
national fleet and landed at vulnerable points, as for 
instance the Dardanelles. That would bring the Turks 
to reason." 

Goschen, in his record of the interesting interview, 
comments that this bold suggestion was apparently not 
simply the inspiration of the moment. Bismarck returned 
to it at their second interview, spoke of forty thousand 
Greek soldiers being carried on foreign ships, and there 
and then dictated a circular to the German ambassadors 
abroad, giving them an abstract of the plan, with instruc- 
tions to communicate it to the Governments to which 
they were accredited. 

Vastly delighted were British diplomatists to find the 
great man so amenable to their policy. The Concert of 
Europe was at last to have an authoritative conductor, 
said Goschen ; or, as Granville expressed it, the great 
man was harnessed to the omnibus, with a premium upon 
his pride to pull it up the hill. 

In fact, Bismarck seemed ready to pull the omnibus 
even higher up than the Foreign Office contemplated. 
He proposed to give Greece as much continental territory 
as had been settled at the Berlin Conference, and, as a 
substitute for a portion of Epirus, also Crete. This was 
a new departure in the spirit as well as in the letter of 
the Berlin agreement. For the rectification of frontier 
recommended by the Congress in 1878 was not so much 
for the purpose of aggrandizing Greece as of providing 
a satisfactory boundary between her and Turkey, and 
thus avoiding friction that might lead to a European 
conflagration. 

But in the interval between these conversations at 
Berlin and Goschen's arrival at Constantinople Bis- 



350 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

marck*s plans suffered a change which mystified as much 
as it grieved British diplomatists. 

The German ambassador at the Porte, contrary to 
his English colleague's expectations, never gave the 
slightest hint that, under certain circumstances, resort 
might be had to something more than moral support of 
Greece ; and when Lord Granville urged the Chancellor, 
through the British ambassador at Berlin, to instruct 
his representative on the Bosphorus to act in accordance 
with his language to Goschen, he let it be understood 
that he himself no longer desired that any measures 
beyond moral pressure should be mentioned, unless war 
became inevitable. Finally he said plainly that he 
thought the best thing would be for Europe to accept 
from the Turks what she could get the Turks to give — 
and that meant Crete only. 1 

Now, it is important to point out that this was a 
change not in degree only. Whoever advised the Sultan 
to give up Crete showed himself the friend of Turkey 
rather than of Greece ; for, invaluable as the acquisition 
of the island would have been to the latter, its loss would 
have been even more advantageous to the former. The 
island had never since its conquest, after a twenty- 
four years' appalling struggle (i 645-1 669), yielded to 
its possessor anything but trouble. No well-wisher of 
the Ottoman Empire had failed to express the opinion 
that, both from a military and from a political point of 
view, the abandonment of Crete could only be regarded 
as strengthening Turkey's power. 2 A single act of 
beneficence, of justice, of prudence, would have delivered 

1 Elliot's Goschen, 207-230. 
This thesis has been very ably expounded by a writer whose 
friendliness to Turkev cannot be questioned. See Captain 
Rudolf von Labres'g Politik und Seekrieg. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 351 

the Sultan from the never-ending rebellions which drained 
his army and treasury, and would have brought about a 
Greco-Turkish understanding against the Slavs highly 
beneficial to his rule. In refusing to perform this act 
the Porte gave a gross proof of stubbornness and stupidity. 

It was, then, the desire to save the Sultan from the 
consequences of his own pig-headedness — from the 
disasters and disgraces which Crete had cost and was 
yet going to cost him — that prompted Bismarck's policy 
in 1 881 : not the desire, as French statesmen, obsessed 
by their Prussian nightmare, imagined, to plunge Europe 
into war. And the abrupt tergiversation which puzzled 
the English Government so sorely at the time can easily 
be accounted for in the light of concurrent events. 

For some time past a section of German opinion had 
been working for the adoption of the programme embodied 
in the phrase Drang nacli Osten. The exponents of that 
programme had already begun to teach Turkey to look 
to Germany for the assistance which she could no longer 
obtain from England. Bismarck had made himself 
the sponsor of that policy to the extent of deciding to 
lend the Sultan a number of officers and civil servants. 
How much farther he may have been prepared to go in 
that direction it is hard to sa}^. No doubt his action would 
have been governed by circumstances. But to the extent 
indicated he considered the policy sound and profitable 
in many respects. While discharging their duties, those 
young Germans would be improving their own education, 
and furrn^hing the Berlin authorities with reliable inform- 
ation which could not otherwise be obtained. Moreover, 
the influence which Germany would thus acquire at 
the Porte might prove very useful on an emergency : if 
France and Russia attacked her, the attitude and the 
military efficiency of Turkey would be matters of con- 



352 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

siderable interest. In any case, Bismarck argued, 
" Turkey could never be dangerous to us, but under 
certain circumstances her enemies might be ours." 1 

How Bismarck reconciled these pro-Turkish views 
with his pro-Greek utterances to Goschen and his instruc- 
tions to the German ambassadors, Heaven only knows. 
Certainly neither the German advocates of the Sultan 
nor their Ottoman friends knew. Both sides felt that, 
if the Chancellor persisted in the plan which he had so 
cheerfully outlined to his English visitor, the Turco- 
German rapprochement then in the course of construction 
would be ruined ; and they both set to work to prevent 
such a calamity. He did not persist 5 and the result 
was a new chapter added to Germany's Welt-politik — a 
chapter destined to mark a momentous era in the history 
of the world. 

Thenceforth for Greece to expect any sympathy from 
Berlin would have been the sign of idiocy. Bismarck 
knew his business far too well to attempt the impossible, 
and of this knowledge he soon gave ample evidence. 
When in 1 885 the Hellenes were roused by the Bulgarian 
coup to demand compensation at Turkey's expense, 
it was the Iron Chancellor who first proposed, through 
his ambassador in London, that effective pressure should 
be brought to bear on them by means of a naval demon- 
stration at the Piraeus : in other words, that they should 
be " bullied." Upon this proposal being rejected, for 
the moment, partly through the unwillingness of France 
to join, the German Minister at Athens was instructed 
to suggest some other form of joint coercion ; and at 
the same time the Greek Charge d' Affaires at Berlin 
reported to his Government that nothing could exceed 
the severity of the language held to him by Count Herbert 

1 See Prince Hohenlohe's Memoirs, July 16, 1880, ii. 268. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 353 

Bismarck. Likewise, when the Greek hopes of English 
support were revived by Gladstone's accession to power, 
the first person to disillusion King George's advisers was 
the German Minister at Athens, who was charged with a 
private message to the Greek Premier from Bismarck 
to the effect that he must not indulge any expectations 
that the attitude of the Liberal Cabinet would differ 
from that of its Tory predecessor, and that it might, 
indeed, prove even more decided. To crown all, the 
secret inquiries made by the Powers as to the state of 
the defences at Salamis and the approaches to the Piraeus, 
previous to sending their armada, were conducted by 
the German officers who had recently come in charge 
of the torpedo boats purchased by the Hellenic Govern- 
ment at Kiel and Stettin. x Truly, when Bismarck 
went out with his gun, he did not waste time in beating 
about the bush. 

In 1889 the marriage of the Kaiser's sister to the 
Greek Crown Prince, the present King Constantine, 
appeared to hold out the promise of a more sympathetic 
attitude. But the Kaiser soon dispelled such illusions ; 
and, as though to make it clear to all parties concerned 
that private ties were not to influence his public policy, 
he went straight from his sister's wedding at Athens to 
Constantinople on a memorable visit to Abdul Hamid. 
Much nonsense was talked then, and has been repeated 
since, that his anti-Hellenic bias was dictated by pique 
at Princess Sophie's conversion to the Orthodox Church — 
as if the statesman who ostentatiously patronized Islam 
cared about the petty divisions of Christendom, or as if 
the head of the House of Hohenzollern had not been 
consulted on the step his sister was about to take ! The 
plain fact, of course, is that the pro-Ottoman orientation 
1 Rumbold's Final Recollections, 49, 79, 80. 



354 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

of German foreign policy, inaugurated under Bismarck 
and developed by William II, was incompatible with 
Philhellenic sympathies. 

Prussia, it has already been said, never does things 
by halves. The Kaiser did not even pretend to do so. 
There is a certain candour and consistency about the 
movements of Prussian diplomacy, which, though the 
persons who suffer from it may denounce as brutal, make 
the student's task much easier. One has not to wade 
through a morass of cant to get at the true meaning of 
its manoeuvres. In accordance with this traditional 
simplicity, William, in 1897, took the lead in urging 
another blockade of the kingdom over which his sister 
was to reign one day ; x and when England refused to 
play again the part of Europe's public executioner, he 
urged Turkey to fall upon Greece with overwhelming 
forces, so as to secure for herself quiet for years and 
demonstrate to the world that, thanks to German tuition, 
she possessed stores of strength that few people suspected 
in her. The Sultan took his mentor's advice. The 
Kaiser's strategists directed the Turkish army's operations 
against the army commanded by his brother-in-law, 
and the German Press proved more than liberal in its 
language about the people who had dared defy the 
Empire over which the German eagle had spread his 
mighty pinions. 

In their feud with the Bulgars the Greeks have en- 
countered almost as much hostility from Germany as 
in their conflict with the Turks. Bulgaria, since her 
breach with Russia in 1885, kept in close touch with 
Germany's Austrian ally. On more than one critical 
occasion Sofia and Vienna have combined to checkmate 
Petersburg, and Berlin, naturally, blessed a game which 
1 Rumbold's Final Recollections, 297. 



THE GERMANIC POWERS AND GREECE 355 

served to strengthen the Germanic interest and to weaken 
the Slavonic in South-eastern Europe. Among the 
innumerable works written about the intricate Greco- 
Bulgarian controversy, perhaps the ablest, on the Bul- 
garian side, is the one written by Richard von Mach 1 — 
an ex-officer of the German and Bulgarian armies and 
German newspaper correspondent at Sofia, to whom 
the Sobranye, in 1907, voted, as a reward for his services, 
an annual pension. 

It would be superfluous to add that the feeling which 
German policy has engendered among the Greeks is 
not one of affection. But neither is it one of hate, such 
as the Austrians inspire. Germany has never treach- 
erously handed over a Greek patriot of genius to an 
ignominious and cruel death, nor volunteered to act as 
the Sultan's jailer. Her opposition has always been 
open. The Hellenes have inherited the passion for 
outspokenness which characterized their ancestors. They 
have also inherited their ancestors' veneration for brains, 
and cannot deny their tribute to a country which has 
contributed so much to the increase of human know- 
ledge. Lastly, there is the wonderful - progress made 
by Germany since 1870 in industry, commerce, and mari- 
time enterprise : all these are things which the Greeks 
understand better than most people, and, in such a case, 
to understand is to admire. 

1 Der Machtbereich des Bulgarischen Exarchat in der Turkei. 



Chapter VII 

THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 

TO no people in Europe did the Great War come as a 
more disagreeable surprise than to the Hellenes. 
After ninety years' struggles and disappointments, they 
had just seen their national union in large measure accom- 
plished. True, many Greek territories still remained 
under alien rule ; but sufficient unto the day the gain 
and the cost thereof. Their sole aim was to secure and 
develop the fruits of their victories, not to grasp at more. 
Like a person who has sown his wild oats, Hellas was 
minded to settle down to business. 

Domestic conditions were eminently favourable to 
such a programme. Blessed with a sovereign and a 
statesman in whose capacity to lead implicit trust could 
be placed, the country, for the first time in its history, 
was wholly free from political discord ; and its finances, 
despite two expensive wars, showed a promising robust- 
ness. The external situation gave no cause for imme- 
diate anxiety. Turkey continued unreconciled, and 
Bulgaria was sullen. The possibility of attack from both 
those quarters could not be ignored ; but it was a remote 
possibility, and, as Servia lived under a similar apprehen- 
sion, the two friendly States had entered into an alliance 
for mutual defence. 

356 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 357 

United, satisfied with the present, and confident in the 
future, the Greek people addressed itself to the task of 
consolidation without delay and with remarkable success. 
Before twelve months had elapsed since the Peace of 
Bucharest, life in the newly-acquired provinces had 
assumed a new face : wastes had been turned into gardens, 
vineyards, and cornfields ; anarchy had vanished ; abso- 
lute security reigned in districts which until 1912 had 
been the theatres of perpetual brigandage and outrage. 
In the winter of 1914 no assizes were held in Macedonia 
for want of criminals. But these were, of course, only the 
foundation-stones of the edifice that was to replace the 
Ottoman ruin. The plan of reconstruction included 
roads, railways, bridges, ports, and all kinds of other 
improvements essential to civilized existence ; and for 
the execution of that plan the Hellenic Kingdom needed 
a long spell of tranquillity. 

The European War was the very last thing the Greeks 
wished or were prepared for. But it did not appear at 
first to threaten them with any more serious shock than 
the economic disturbance which every neutral country 
was bound to experience. Repeated assertions to the 
contrary notwithstanding, her Treaty with Servia im- 
posed upon Greece no obligation, legal or moral. It was 
a purely Balkan arrangement, providing for no compli- 
cations outside the Balkan area. This is proved not only 
by the evidence of one who took an active part in its con- 
clusion, 1 but also by the fact that Servia neither called 

1 Prince Nicolas of Greece to the Editor of the Temps : 
" J 'ai moi-meme pris une part active aux negotiations qui ont 
abouti a la conclusion de ce traite d 'alliance. Je puis affitrmer que 
ce traite est un traite balkanique qui ne vise que la politique balk- 
anique. II n'avait ni ne pouvait avoir en vue de participer a 
une guerre mondiale, dont les conditions et les facteurs etaient 
impossibles a prevoir et a apprecier d'avance." — Le Temps, 
February, 18, 1916. 



358 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

upon Greece to intervene, nor complained of her non- 
intervention. Indeed, even without any proof, common 
sense is enough to tell every one possessed of a grain of 
that commodity, and willing to use it, that neither of the 
contracting pygmies was mad enough to pledge himself 
to defend the other against half Europe. As to the other 
belligerents, the Greek people had to reconcile as best it 
could its profound love of France with an admiration 
hardly less profound for Germany. But neither of these 
feelings constituted a reason for the Greek Government 
to take any share in a quarrel in which they certainly had 
no concern. 

The entry of Turkey into the arena altered the position. 
A victorious Ottoman Empire meant a perpetuation of 
the Turkish yoke over the Hellenes of Thrace and Asia 
Minor, and a menace to the Hellenic Kingdom itself. If, 
on the other hand, Greece assisted in the destruction of 
that Empire, the result would be the liberation of some at 
least of the Sultan's Greek subjects and a considerable 
access of territory. So reasoned the statesmen of Athens. 
At the same time, from the standpoint of the European 
Powers, the attitude of Greece, after Turkey's entry, 
became a matter of great importance to both groups ; 
and Athens a scene of rival cabals and propagandas 
similar to those which Constantinople had witnessed a 
few weeks before. Only here the parts were reversed. 
Here it was Germany who wanted Greece to remain neu- 
tral, and the Entente that desired her to join in the war. 

Negotiations between the representatives of the Entente 
and the Hellenic Government ensued. M. Venizelos, the 
Premier, was eager for participation ; King Constantine 
was not averse to it, provided the Allies planned their 
Eastern operations in a manner that promised a reason- 
able chance of success : he deprecated any naval assault 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 359 

on the Dardanelles, which he, with most sane people, 
knew to be impregnable, and advocated an overland 
march to Constantinople, offering the whole of his army 
for the purpose. Had this sensible scheme been adopted, 
the Greeks would have joined the Allies with all the 
enthusiasm of which they are capable. Not a prince or 
politician, not a soldier or sailor, not a tradesman or 
ploughman, from one end of the country to the other, 
but would have been glad to spend his last drachma and 
to shed the last drop of his blood in a cause the mere 
mention of which set every Hellenic heart on fire : the 
reestablishment of the Byzantine Empire. 

That ideal, under the stress of consistent discourage- 
ment from the Powers, had, as we saw, suffered a griev- 
ous diminution : few Greek statesmen after 1885 cher- 
ished the hope of seeing the ancient dream of their race 
realized. But in the popular consciousness the expecta- 
tion had lost none of its vigour. For some years past the 
anniversary of the fall of Constantinople (May 29, O.S.) 
was observed as a day of national mourning. After the 
victories of 1912 and 1913, and the revival of optimism 
which they brought with them, this funereal ceremony 
had been turned suddenly into a festival : a day of anti- 
cipation rather than of commemoration. The crowds 
which thronged the cathedral at Athens acclaimed their 
sovereign as Constantine XII — destined to avenge the 
sad fate of Constantine XI and to recover the imperial 
crown which that Emperor had lost. " To the City ! " 
(Stin Poll !) " To St. Sophia ! " (Stin Aya Sofia /)— such 
were the wishes with which the King was greeted ; and 
he desired nothing better than an opportunity of ful- 
filling them. 

In this spirit he made his suggestions. They were 
ignored, partly because Great Britain and France con- 



360 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

sidered it beneath their dignity to be guided by the 
advice of so small a country as Greece, but chiefly because 
they were incompatible with the aims of the third partner 
in the Alliance. Russia did not wish to see a Greek 
sovereign in Constantinople or anywhere near it : she had 
long since ear-marked that prize for herself. 

The plan of the Entente was that the Balkan States 
should form another Coalition and enter the field as a 
fourth partner. It was a beautiful conception — in the 
abstract. But we are not living in a world of abstrac- 
tions. Small States have their rivalries as much as the 
Great Powers. How was this fundamental difficulty to 
be removed ? Why, very simply. With an optimism 
— not to say levity — worthy of visionaries, the architects 
of the project set to work to persuade Greece and Servia 
to conciliate Bulgaria by giving up to her in cold blood 
the Macedonian territories which they had won at the 
cost of two wars, and to give them up forthwith — on the 
chance of compensating themselves at the expense of a 
demolished Turkey and a dismembered Austria in some 
problematical hereafter. This, no doubt, was a transac- 
tion sufficiently speculative to commend itself to French, 
English, and Russian diplomatists ; but it was not good 
enough for the average Greek and Serb. They, like the 
Bulgars, preferred a bird in the hand to two in the bush, 
and the utmost they would promise was to yield those 
territories to Bulgaria if and when, with Bulgaria's co- 
operation, they succeeded in despoiling the Ottoman 
and Austrian Empires : not before. Only a Diplomacy 
blind to elementary realities could have seriously antici- 
pated any other answer. The plan, it may be added, was 
British ; as also was the tenacity with which it was clung 
to even after its hopelessness had become manifest. It 
was England's contribution to the Balkan mess. 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 361 

So much for the political side of the question. The 
military side was hardly brighter . King Constantine, 
a soldier, had a soldier's appreciation of Germany's mili- 
tary ability : he by no means shared the estimate of that 
factor of the problem which found favour with his san- 
guine Prime Minister. He could not treat the matter as 
a matter of Faith, but demanded that the decision of 
Greece — a decision that involved her very existence — 
should have a basis in concrete facts. The Greek General 
Staff, a body of officers who had demonstrated their com- 
petence in two wars, was entirely of the King's way of 
thinking. They were willing to throw in their lot with 
the Allies, only if France and England would send to the 
Balkan Peninsula forces sufficient, with the co-operation 
of the Greek, to protect Servia and hold the Danube, 
while Austria and Germany had their hands full with 
the Russians in Galicia. But France and England were 
otherwise engaged. Instead of doing something that 
might enhance the world's estimate of their military 
ability, they committed themselves to the insane Dar- 
danelles adventure. This — Russia's contribution to the 
mess — was an exhibition scarcely calculated to inspire 
King Constantine and his experts with confidence. He, 
therefore, refused to enter the field on the terms of the 
Entente. M. Venizelos still favoured intervention on 
those terms ; but even he apparently shrank from the 
responsibility of driving his country into so dubious a 
path, for, although he commanded a majority in the 
Chamber, he resigned (February, 1915). 

His successor, M. Gounaris, in April, attempted to re- 
open the negotiations, proposing to join the Allies on con- 
dition that they, at least, guaranteed the integrity of 
Greece against Bulgaria — whose dispositions were no 
secret to any observer of average sagacity. England 

A A 



362 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

replied vaguely that she could not give a categorical 
answer before consulting the other members of the Alli- 
ance. The reply from France was equally vague. The 
Russian Minister at Athens, on the other hand, gave M. 
Gounaris to understand that his Government did not 
consider it necessary for Greece to participate in the 
War. And there the matter dropped. 

So the weeks lengthened into months, and still the 
Allies were unable to take the one step which would have 
brought Greece and Rumania, and probably even Bul- 
garia herself, into their camp : the prompt dispatch of 
an adequate army to Servia. 

When M. Venizelos returned to power in August, as the 
result of the General Elections held at the end of May, 
he found the King more disinclined than before to take a 
hand in the dangerous gamble. For, in the meantime, 
while the Allied diplomatists were talking, things had 
been happening. The first failures of the Anglo-French 
efforts in the Dardanelles (March-May) were followed 
by the Austro-German successes in Galicia and Poland : 
everywhere the Russian " steam-roller " was forced to 
roll backwards by the ever-advancing enemy ; and Bul- 
garia showed unmistakable signs of her intention to join 
that enemy (June-September). These things changed 
the whole aspect of affairs, and many Greeks who were 
formerly in favour of M. Venizelos's programme began to 
question its wisdom. 

It was not until then that the Allies began to exchange 
talk for action in the Balkans. The British plan of a 
Greco-Serbo-Bulgarian Coalition, and the Russian plan of 
forcing a way to Constantinople through the Dardanelles 
having collapsed, it was the turn of France to contribute 
her share to the mess. She did so, in the form of an 
expedition for the relief of Servia. England was not at all 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 363 

keen on another adventure in South-Eastern Europe. 
But she acquiesced; and on October 5 Anglo-French 
troops landed at Salonica on their way to Servia. But 
King Constantine declined to be impressed by this dis- 
play of energy. The forces were too small, and they had 
come too late. Even if every adult Greek joined them, 
Servia could not be saved ; only Greece would be sacri- 
ficed. The Germans were now free to hurl their legions 
across the Danube, and Bulgaria was massing her troops 
on the Servian frontier. Sorry as he was for Servia's 
plight, King Constantine did not feel called upon to com- 
mit national suicide. M. Venizelos once more resigned 
(October 6), and M. Zaimis formed a Ministry pledged to 
a policy of benevolent neutrality. 

Events soon justified the most pessimistic prognostica- 
tions. In less than a fortnight (October 6-17) Servia was 
inundated by the Germano-Austro-Bulgarian deluge. 
The Allies called upon Greece to succour them, offering 
her Cyprus in return. The offer, in different circum- 
stances, would have been very tempting. As it was, 
King Constantine did not see his way to accept it. What 
would have availed him to get Cyprus and lose Athens ? 
According to some observers all had not yet been lost : 
" If considerable contingents of Allied troops were 
promptly to be sent to the Balkan Peninsula, their arrival 
would assure the Greek public that the struggle would be 
waged on more equal terms. Such a development might 
well be calculated to impose on Greece a policy of action," 
wrote the Times correspondent at Athens on October 30. * 
But nothing was done. 

Thus stood the account of Greece with the Allies at the 
close of the first year of the War. They had contrived 
to range her natural enemies — Turkey and Bulgaria — 
1 The Times, November 1, 191 5. 



364 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

against them without gaining her. For this result — a 
result which one would have thought physically im- 
possible — they had to thank, not the German propaganda 
at Athens, of which we have heard enough, nor King 
Constantine's German connexions, of whom we have 
heard too much, but mainly their own diplomatic and 

strategic ineptitude. 

# * * * * 

M. Venizelos remained a firm believer in the ultimate 
triumph of the Allies : "I am confident that they will 
win. They must win. They cannot fail. They have 
committed nearly all the faults possible, but their cause 
will automatically prevail." So spoke the statesman. 
But his sovereign was less sanguine than ever. He con- 
tinued to view the situation from a soldier's standpoint ; 
and was less inclined than ever to stake the existence of his 
country on the throw of a die. The spectre of Belgium 
had always haunted him, and now to that was added the 
spectacle of Servia. " If only one-twentieth of the hopes 
of M. Venizelos had been realized," he said, " I would 
have placed myself at the head of all the Hellenic forces." 

The Greek people listened to both their leaders with 
equal respect. But, on the whole, in a military question, 
they were disposed to let themselves be guided by the 
judgment of a soldier rather than by that of a layman, 
however clever. Besides, England's persistence in urg- 
ing the conciliation of Bulgaria at their cost and her reluc- 
tance to aid Servia, rightly or wrongly, had engendered 
among the Greeks the suspicion that, in spite of all that 
had happened, the British Government was still attached 
to the idea of a Big Bulgaria. This interpretation of 
England's aims in Macedonia promoted in the public 
mind the refrigeration which Russia's aims elsewhere had 
begun. 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 365 

Thus the King was able to pursue his policy of neu- 
trality, and, as M. Zaimis carried his benevolence towards 
the Allies too far, he was replaced, after a month's tenure 
of office, by M. Skouloudis (November 6). 

Now, neutrality for a small State geographically situ- 
ated as Greece is must be taken with many qualifications ; 
and the Allies did not scruple from the first to make exten- 
sive use of the Greek islands and ports, under the plea of 
military necessity : the only law nations recognize in 
practice, whatever they may profess in theory. After the 
landing at Salonica this high-handed attitude assumed 
such proportions that the relations of the Entente Powers 
and the Hellenic Kingdom thenceforth could only be com- 
pared to the relations between a band of bullies who want 
to have their own way and a child which can do nothing 
more than protest. The landing itself had been carried out 
under cover of a Greco-Servian Convention which gave 
to the Serbs certain rights of transport over the Greek 
railways and the use of a wharf in the harbour. M. Veni- 
zelos in sanctioning the disembarkation had stretched 
the meaning of that Convention almost to a point of 
breach of neutrality ; but even he had limited the per- 
mission to a passage to Servia only. The Allies, however, 
compelled to fall back into Greek Macedonia, and deter- 
mined to stay there, demanded such extensions of the 
original permission as Greece could not grant with- 
out either resigning her sovereign rights or placing herself 
into a position of hostility to the Central Powers. Cajo- 
lery had to give place to coercion. Soon after the acces- 
sion of M. Skouloudis the Greek ports were blockaded, 
Greek ships were held up, and the country, which depends 
for its subsistence very largely on foreign foodstuffs, was 
brought to the verge of starvation. The Germans and 
the Bulgars attempted to relieve the situation, and to 



366 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

prevent Greece from being famished into their enemies' 
camp, by sending 15,000 tons of wheat by rail. But this 
gift could not be repeated, because the railway line was 
commanded by the guns of the Allied Fleet. 

The pretext for this treatment of a State which had 
given no provocation and could offer no resistance, was 
the alleged fear lest the Greek authorities should attempt 
to disarm our retreating forces. Such undoubtedly 
would have been the action of any neutral State able to 
make its legal rights respected. But the Greeks knew 
now, even if they had not known it before, to what extent 
their very lives were at the mercy of the Powers who 
controlled the sea. Nothing could be farther from their 
thoughts than to court trouble. However, the pretext 
served the purpose of lending a plausible colour to law- 
lessness ; and by the employment of famine as a means 
of moral suasion, the Allies managed to force Greece into 
an endless series of concessions equally inconsistent with 
the neutrality and the dignity of a free State. 

M. Venizelos used the action of the Allies as a practical 
demonstration of his view that intervention on the side 
of the Entente was the only course consonant with the 
vital interests of his country. King Constantine was not 
unaware of these conditions ; but his fear of Germany 
overbalanced his fear of her adversaries. France and 
England could not treat as an enemy a State that re- 
mained neutral, whereas by departing from neutrality 
he would be exposing Greece to the peril of a German 
invasion. By this time the demon of discord, incited by 
foreign diplomacy, had begun once more to breathe his 
poison on the domestic counsels of Greece. 

The difference between the King and M. Venizelos is 
essentially a difference of opinion on the best policy for 
their country. That both are inspired by the loftiest 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 367 

patriotism none who has had the privilege of their ac- 
quaintance can for a moment doubt. But sentiments of 
a less lofty nature are apt to get themselves mixed up 
even in the bosoms of the purest patriots. The King 
and his antagonist, though they had co-operated loyally 
in the aggrandizement of their country, never were very 
sympathetic to one another. Apart from the memories 
of old feuds which still rankled, they both laboured under 
a very human weakness ; which had been accentuated 
by their respective successes. The fumes of popularity 
had entered both heads ; and it might be said of these 
great men (I hope they will pardon the comparison) as of 
Caesar and Pompey, the one could not brook a superior, 
and the other was impatient of an equal. 

Until this grave issue arose, they shared evenly the 
homage of their compatriots : if Greece was proud of M. 
Venizelos as of another Pericles, she was not less proud of 
King Constantine as of another Basil Boulgaroktonos. 
But now that they had fallen apart, which of the two was 
Greece really disposed to follow ? M. Venizelos and the 
Allies maintained that the nation was spoiling for a fight, 
and if it could express its will, it would vote for M. Veni- 
zelos and his policy. The King absolutely denied that 
such was the case, and offered to put the matter to the 
test of new Elections (November 12). But M. Venizelos 
objected that the Elections would not be a fair test : all 
his supporters were detained voteless under arms, and the 
only votes cast would be those of the older and more 
timid men. Therefore he and his followers abstained 
from the polls. 

The new Chamber, which assembled on January 24, 
1916, contained no Venizelists, and the Skouloudis Cabi- 
inet continued in power. But that did not suit the 
Allies. If the King was left unmolested, what became of 



368 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

their chances of drawing Greece into the War ? M. 
Venizelos, who appears to have been prompted to absten- 
tion by the patriotic desire not to widen the schism, was 
persuaded to resume his political activity (April, 1916). 
This provoked his opponents to counter-activity; and 
the pro-Entente campaign found itself faced by an anti- 
Entente campaign. The two parties came into collision at 
a public meeting organized by the Venizelists at Athens, 
when violent objurgations were exchanged, shots fired, 
and arrests made. A fortnight afterwards M. Venizelos 
stood for Mytilene and was returned (May 8). His 
advent in Parliament, and the exertions of his supporters* 
native and foreign, however, proved fruitless. The 
policy of neutrality still held the field. But a crisis was 
not far off. 

In the interval the Allied troops under General Sarrail 
had made themselves at home in Macedonia, blowing 
up bridges, erecting fortifications wherever they liked, 
using the railways at their discretion, and Salonica as 
their own town. The Germans, so far back as the pre- 
ceding December, when Greece had been coerced into 
submission, had warned the Hellenic Government that, 
by delivering Macedonia to the Entente it had alienated 
its sovereignty over that part of the country, and that 
they also considered themselves entitled to cross the 
frontier at their discretion. The Greeks did not mind 
very much the Austro-Germans crossing their frontier : 
if one side had made free of their land, why should not 
the other ? If neutrality meant anything, it meant 
according equal facilities to both combatants. But 
they contemplated with the utmost disgust the possible 
appearance of a Bulgarian foot on the soil of Macedonia : 
the soil so recently devastated by that hereditary and 
abhorred enemy. If that happened, the Venizelists 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 369 

vowed, they would throw loyalty to the winds and fly 
to arms. That presently did happen. 

Towards the end of May the Allies began an advance 
north, occupying some villages on the Bulgaro-Greek 
frontier. The Bulgars replied by advancing south and 
occupying Fort Rupel, which was surrendered to them by 
order of the Hellenic Government. A cry of horror went 
up at this surrender ; and a new card was placed into 
the hands of M. Venizelos and his Allies. The former 
declared that the Government had betrayed Hellas ; the 
latter asked M. Skouloudis what he meant by it. M. 
Skouloudis answered that he considered the occupation 
of Fort Rupel by the Bulgaro-Germans as an inevitable 
consequence of the Anglo-French occupation of Salonica. 
By refusing to allow it, the Government would have 
acted in an un-neutral way and exposed Greece to the 
risk of war with Germany. The Allies' retort was another 
grave infringement of Greek sovereignty. General Sar- 
rail deposed the Greek authorities at Salonica, seized the 
Government offices, and proclaimed martial law. But 
even this did not exhaust the diplomatic resources of the 
Entente. Their Press clamoured again for " pressure." 
Greece ought to be punished severely for her " political 
felony." The measures already taken at Salonica were 
insufficient. What was needed was " strong action " at 
the Piraeus. It is easy to be strong against the weak. 
The inspired clamour of the Press was the appropriate 
preamble to another great essay in moral suasion. On 
June 8 restrictions were once more imposed on 
imports. The Greeks protested. The most servile 
people could scarcely have submitted without protest to 
this arbitrary interference with its daily bread,: Athens 
witnessed a number of demonstrations against the Allies 
and M. Venizelos. Some British officers were insulted. 



370 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

The Entente newspapers yelled " Greece is flouting the 
Allies ! " The coercive measures were intensified. The 
country was once more menaced with famine. 

Simultaneously, England, France, and Russia recalled 
that they were the guardians of Greece and of her Con- 
stitutional liberties. Acting in concert with M. Venize- 
los, they declared that a Parliament which had not been 
elected by the whole body of citizens was an unconstitu- 
tional Parliament. The actions of a Cabinet containing 
no person empowered to speak in the name of the nation 
were illegal actions. Impelled by a paternal solicitude 
to restore to Greece her Parliamentary institutions, which 
King Constantine had so arbitrarily trampled under foot, 
the " Protecting Powers " demanded the dismissal of M. 
Skouloudis' Ministry, the dissolution of the Chamber, and 
new Elections — to be preceded by a demobilization of 
the army. The pretext for this last demand was the old 
alleged fear lest the Greek forces should attack the forces 
of the Allies in Macedonia. The true reason was the 
belief that the army consisted largely of Venizelists who 
would vote for him and his policy. The ultimatum met, 
as was to be expected, with prompt obedience. Pending 
the new Elections, a purely business Government, to 
mark time and do the bidding of the Allies, was formed 
under M. Zaimis (June 22). On the following day the 
restrictive measures were relaxed, and two days later sus- 
pended. The correspondents of the Entente journals at 
Athens unctuously reported that Greece had a Magna 
Charta given her. And yet, strange to relate, there 
were no crowds or gatherings in the streets, no cheers for 
the " Protecting Powers," no evidence of joy or gratitude 
anywhere ! " This is the least demonstrative people I 
have been among," gravely wrote one of these well- 
informed gentlemen. 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 371 

Some eight weeks passed after this Magna Charta 
business ; and then the question of War or Neutrality 
flared up again. 

Meanwhile the offensive of the Allies in Macedonia had 
developed, causing a counter-movement on the part of 
the enemy. In the third week of August the Bulgars 
attacked along the whole line, from the Vardar to the 
Struma, and pushed to the important Greek towns of 
Serres, Drama, and Kavalla. The Greek garrisons found 
themselves in a tragic dilemma : to obey their feelings 
and resist the invader, thereby plunging their country 
into war, or to obey their king and quietly give up the 
places which only three years before they had rescued from 
the Bulgars under that same king's leadership. With a 
few exceptions, discipline and loyalty prevailed over 
sentiment ; and the towns were abandoned to the Bul- 
gars. 

The grief, the dismay, and the rage which this fresh 
misfortune excited among all classes of the Hellenic people 
may easily be imagined. M. Venizelos and the Allies 
hastened to make political capital out of the popular 
emotion. The organs of the former cursed the advocates 
of neutrality as traitors to the country ; those of the latter 
denounced them as traitors both to the country and to 
the " Protecting Powers." The most odious accusations 
were hurled at the King's party : sometimes it was the 
Kaiser's party ; sometimes it was a Bulgarian party, and 
the King himself, in the persons of his Ministers, was held 
up to execration as more noxious to Greece than any 
external enemy. To him chiefly it was owing that, at 
the most critical moment in her history, a hostile army 
was violating the soil of Hellas and a friendly fleet block- 
ading her shores. The adherents of the King hurled the 
charges back at their authors. All the calamities and 



372 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

mortifications which Greece suffered were traced to M. 
Venizelos. It was M. Venizelos and no other who had 
entangled the country in this vicious circle of invasion, 
counter-invasion, and coercion ; for was it not he who had 
invited the Allies to land at Salonica ? Both parties held 
meetings in which impassioned orators harangued against 
each other, called each other nasty names, threatened each 
other ; and the temper of the populace grew hourly 
wilder. 

In the midst of all this discontent, distress, and disr 
order, the Allies stripped the Kingdom of the last shreds 
of sovereignty left to it. On September I their fleet, 
under Admiral du Fournet, entered the Piraeus and other 
harbours, seizing all the German or Austrian mercantile 
vessels that were to be found there, while their represen- 
tatives at Athens exacted the immediate expulsion of all 
German propagandists and the prosecution of their Greek 
" accomplices," as well as the surrender of the posts, 
telegraphs, and telephones of the State into their own 
hands. King Constantine, as usual, submitted to meas- 
ures he had not the power to resist, and his Government 
lodged the usual energetic and ineffectual protest. 

While these things were taking place in Greece, news 
came of Rumania's adhesion to the Entente side. This 
event, coupled with the other forces at work, was ex- 
pected to influence the King's judgment. And, indeed, 
it does appear to have disposed him to reconsider his 
policy. But Rumania, unhappily, did not make such a 
brilliant beginning as to convince him that her entry had 
altered the military situation to a degree justifying an 
imitation of her example. The conversations, therefore, 
between his Premier and the representatives of the 
Entente led to nothing ; and M. Zaimis, at heart a 
Venizelist, resigned (September ii). 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 373 

King Constantine held firmly to his opinion that neu- 
trality still was the safest attitude for his country. But 
he had no desire, even he if had the power, to force his 
opinion upon his subjects. In an audience he granted 
to the Correspondent of the Associated Press on the 1st 
of September he had said that this was not the moment 
to talk of his deciding the fate of Greece, nor of the 
Government's deciding it : the nation must decide and 
the nation would have an opportunity of doing so at the 
General Elections. 

Now, this was precisely what M. Venizelos and the 
Allies had been demanding all along. M. Venizelos 
asserted that he represented the national will, and if the 
nation were only given the chance, it would endorse his 
policy by an overwhelming majority. The Allies, through 
their less irresponsible organs, affirmed that whether 
Greece did or did not retain her neutrality was a question 
which primarily concerned the Greeks themselves : the 
" Protecting Powers " were only anxious that the Greeks 
should enjoy their full constitutional liberty to decide by 
their suffrages the future of their Kingdom. In pursuance 
of these professions they had, as we saw, obtained the 
dissolution of Parliament, and the demobilization of the 
army, which set all Greek citizens free to register their 
votes. Accordingly, M. Dimitracopoulos, who was in- 
vited by the King to succeed M. Zaimis, went to the re- 
presentatives of the Entente with the proposal that the 
policy of the country should be left an open question 
until the will of the nation was declared by the Elections, 
which, he suggested, should be held within a month at 
the latest. Strange as it will doubtless sound to all un- 
sophisticated folk, the Entente Ministers rejected this 
proposal. They were too wise to publish their motives ; 
but happily for the fisher of truth in an ocean of cant, M. 



374 TURKEY, GREECE AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Venizelos was less reticent. He declared that the Elec- 
tions ought not to be held until after the change of policy 
had been effected, " in order that the entry of Greece into 
the war might not become an election issue." x 

The explanation of this curious change of tune is very 
simple. The demobilization of the army had exposed 
the myth that the vast majority of the Greek people was 
opposed to neutrality and was only prevented from join- 
ing the Allies by a Germanophile Court and a clique of 
politicians corrupted by German gold. The disbanded 
Reservists upon whose votes M. Venizelos and the Allies 
had so confidently counted, went back to their homes 
raging at the hardships and humiliations heaped upon 
the Army and the King who had twice led it to victory 
by the usurpers of his authority. One instance will 
suffice to illustrate the situation. Some Greek officers 
had entered the premises of a Venizelist journal at Salo- 
nica and ill-treated its editor. The Greek authorities duly 
arrested them. But General Sarrail, arrogating to him- 
self the privileges of a master in another man's house, 
ordered his soldiers to break into the Greek prison and 
carry off the prisoners to a French jail, to be tried by a 
French court. This was only one of countless incidents, 
that taught the Greeks how brutal, where its interests 
are concerned, can be the nation which they had adored. 

So strong was the resentment among military men of all 
ranks that, as the train which bore them to their homes 
stopped at the country stations, the disbanded troops 
leaned out of the windows and shouted to the bystand- 
ers: " A black vote for Venizelos ! " and the first thing 
they did, as soon as they returned to civil life, was to form 
Unions with a view to fighting the pro-Entente candidates 
at the polls. On the 22nd of June, when the birth of 

1 See The Times dispatches from Athens, September 14 and 24. 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 375 

these associations was announced, the Venizelist organs 
affected to laugh them to scorn, imagining that the in- 
dignation was confined to a very small minority of mal- 
contents. But on the 8th of September the Entente 
Ministers at Athens compelled the Greek Government to 
suppress organizations which from objects of derision 
had become objects of dismay to their opponents. 

In brief, whatever the feelings of the people and of the 
Army — the youngest and most ardent part of the people 
— may have been at the beginning of the schism, by this 
time it was painfully clear to M. Venizelos that the vast 
majority of both was against him. True it is that the 
tame abandonment of the forts and towns in Eastern 
Macedonia to the hated Bulgars had stirred up much dis- 
content ; but the outcry against the King was a mere 
murmur when compared with the clamour against M. 
Venizelos ; and that clamour, when the Allies had re- 
course to the last-mentioned measures of moral suasion, 
was swollen by many voices which until recently were 
raised in his favour. In the circumstances, the appeal 
to the national will had lost all its charm for him and his 
friends ; and the Allies, after their imaginary triumph 
of June, instead of hurrying on, had been putting off the 
Elections — from August to September, from September 
to October, and now they postponed them sine die. 

M. Dimitracopoulos, having failed to propitiate the 
Ministers of the Entente, abandoned the effort to form a 
Cabinet to M. Kalogeropoulos, who also, after a fortnight 
spent in the vain endeavour to gain the countenance of 
the Entente Ministers, had to resign. The thankless task 
was then undertaken by Professor Lambros (October 8), 
to whom the Entente Powers deigned to extend a sort of 
half-hearted recognition. But his tenure of office is 
bound to.be ephemeral. No Government from which M. 



376 TURKEY, GREECE, AND THE GREAT POWERS 

Venizelos is excluded can possess more than an ephe- 
meral existence, inasmuch as it does not represent the will 
of the Allies. Greece, from an independent, has been 
reduced to the rank of a vassal State, no longer at 
liberty to have a Government not approved by her 
" Protectors." 

$ l|S * * * 

Meanwhile the authors of this tragi-comedy had 
strengthened the plot-interest by the introduction of new 
and far more exciting elements. 

Since King Constantine so stubbornly resisted coercion, 
they decided to try the effect of an explosion. 

Soon after the surrender of Serres, Drama, and Kavalla, 
a Revolutionary Committee was formed at Salonica — 
the headquarters of the Allies. This body issued an 
appeal to the people and the Army to rise and drive the 
Bulgars from Macedonia — in other words, to enter into 
the war on the side of the Entente : if the King could be 
intimidated to go with them, so much the better ; if not, 
they would go without him. At the very moment when 
the Anglo-French armada was demonstrating at the 
Piraeus (September i), this body translated itself from a 
" Committee of National Defence " into a " Provisional 
Government " and assumed the functions of one : forc- 
ing the gendarmerie and the garrisons in Macedonia to 
join its volunteers or to clear out, issuing bonds and de- 
bentures, subscriptions for which were received by the 
Revolutionary Treasury at the French Quartier General, 
and, in one word, substituting its own for the royal 
authority. From Salonica the movement spread to the 
newly-acquired islands — Lemnos, Chios, Mytilene, Samos, 
and Crete — that is, to all the regions which lie under the 
immediate influence of the Allies' military and naval 
forces. But in Old Greece, from the northern limits of 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 377 

Thessaly to the southern coasts of the Peloponnesus, it 
met with very little response. Only some individual 
officers and politicians notified to the King their convic- 
tion that their country's interests demanded immediate 
action against Bulgaria. The King let it be under- 
stood once more that he was not by any means averse 
to action against Bulgaria— far from it. But he would 
not be hustled : his attitude would be determined in the 
future, as it had been in the past, by the military situa- 
tion. No amount of pressure could alter his determina- 
tion to do what he considered the best thing for his 
country, even at the risk of his throne. 

M. Venizelos then resolved to bring the crisis to a 
climax. On the 25th of September he left Athens to place 
himself at the head of the revolutionary movement, and, 
after settling matters to his satisfaction in Crete, Samos, 
Mytilene, and Chios, he arrived at Salonica with Admiral 
Coundouriotis and General Danglis. This Triumvirate 
has invested itself with the powers of Royalty, taken up 
its residence at the Royal Palace, and appointed a Minis- 
try. It is said that the self-constituted Government 
intends to legalize its position by convoking the Chamber 
of 1915 in which M. Venizelos had a majority, completely 
ignoring all the changes in public opinion that have 
taken place in the interval. Meanwhile it collects taxes 
and tries to raise an army. 

In taking this momentous step, M. Venizelos was 
buoyed by the hope that the fear of civil war would 
compel the King to yield, or that, if he continued inflexible, 
he would lose the sympathies of his present supporters. 
'* We feel our sphere of influence will increase," he said. 
" Gradually what authority remains to Athens will pass 
away." x But whether events were destined to justify 
1 See the Times, October 13, 1916, 



378 TURKEY, GREECE, AND THE GREAT POWERS 

this forecast or not, the immediate result of his action 
was the exact opposite. The Press denounced him as 
an ambitious and unprincipled adventurer who forsook 
his sovereign to attach himself to foreigners out of per- 
sonal spite and a thirst for personal glory. Neutrality 
offered no scope to his ambition. He therefore espoused 
a policy of adventure. For the gratification of his in- 
ordinate vanity he did not hesitate to sacrifice his con- 
science and his country. In twelve months he had 
brought upon Greece every conceivable calamity and in- 
dignity. And now, not content with the evil he had 
already wrought, he openly pushed her into the abyss of 
ruin. Nor was there any sign of support in any quarter. 
With a few and insignificant exceptions, the Army, the 
Navy, and the People of Old Greece remained passive. 
The Revolution threatened to end in a fiasco. 

Then the Allies once more stepped in. On the ioth of 
October Admiral du Fournet, in command of the Allied 
Fleet, summoned the Hellenic Government, " as a meas- 
ure of security for the Allied forces on land and sea," to 
surrender to him, within so many hours, the whole of the 
Greek Fleet, 1 to disarm the coast batteries, and to place 
the Pirasus-Larissa-Salonica railway under the control of 
the Allies. With all these demands the Hellenic Govern- 
ment complied at once, thus showing to what extent the 
pretext under which this vindictive ultimatum was 
framed corresponded with the facts. But, as if to make 
the true purpose of these measures plain to the meanest 
intelligence, the French Admiral followed them by others. 
In a supplementary Note he demanded, and obtained, 
the control of the Athens Police ; and, most enlightening 

1 That menace to the Anglo-French armada consisted of five 
battleships, dating with one exception from 1891-2, and two 
cruisers. 



THE MORAL SUASION OF GREECE 379 

step of all, the Chief of the French Police Control has 
warned the editors of the Athenian journals to desist 
from publishing anti-Entente articles, on pain of sus- 
pension. 

Thus far has the moral suasion of Greece proceeded at 
the moment of writing : her warships are manned by 
foreign crews, her strategic railway is controlled by 
foreign officers, her press is gagged by foreign censors, the 
streets of her capital are patrolled by foreign sailors. 
And thus far the process has yielded quite other than 
the anticipated fruits. 

Men are apt to interpret violence as a proof of weakness. 
The Greeks said : if the Entente Powers are as sure of 
victory as they pretend to be, why do they so desperately 
want our assistance ? They must be in a very bad way, 
indeed, to strive to gain a handful of allies by such wicked 
and shameful methods — they who profess to have entered 
upon this war to avenge the violation of Belgium's neu- 
trality, to vindicate the sanctity of international law, to 
champion the independence of small nations ! This they 
said until a few months ago. They say it no longer. 
The question has ceased to be a question between inter- 
vention and neutrality for them : it has become a ques- 
tion between loyalty and desertion. The Allies found 
King Constantine a hero in the eyes of his subjects ; they 
have made him a martyr. Every insult that has been 
inflicted upon him has added a new ray to the halo which 
already surrounded his head. The Powers may expel 
him from the throne of Greece, as they expelled Otho : 
no human power can now expel him from her heart. It 
may be stated, not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a demon- 
strated fact, that the most effective propagandist the 
Kaiser has had in Greece has been the Allied Fleet. A 
policy of terrorism is a mistaken policy always, and never 



380 TURKEY, GREECE, AND THE GREAT POWERS 

more egregiously mistaken than when applied to a sensi- 
tive and high-spirited people. Even if they do end by 
gaining Greece over to their side, the material assistance 
which the Entente Powers may get will bear no propor- 
tion to the resentment which they have aroused. Long 
after the present war has passed into the pages of ancient 
history, the memory of the treatment they have received 
will continue to embitter the feelings of the Hellenic race 
towards all of them, and more particularly towards 
France, the protagonist in this sad and sordid farce. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abbot, Archbishop, 217-8, 225, 230 

, Consul, 126 

Abbott, Henry, Consul, 185 

, Peter, Levant Co.'s Treasurer, 

60 n, 
, Robert, East India Co.'s Agent, 

44 n. 
Abdul Aziz, Sultan, 71, 72, 290 
Hamid, Sultan, 72, 73, 158- 

60, 180, 181, 190, 192, 294-6, 

353 

■ Mejid, Sultan, 70, 154, 290 

Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 152 

About, Edmond, 319 

Ahmed I, Sultan, 171 

Aleppo, English Colony at, 122-6, 

134-7, I39-4I 

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, 261, 
264, 266 

Alfred, Prince (Duke of Edinburgh), 
287-8, 303-4 

Ali Pasha, Satrap of Epirus, 256, 259 

Allies, The, and Turkey, 194 foil. ; 
and Greece, 358 foil. 

Ambassadors, in Turkey, treatment 
of, 8-15, and passim. 

An drassy, Count, 178 n., 179, 187, 343 

Andrezel, Viscount d', 41 

Anne, Empress of Russia, 56, 238 

Argyll, Duke of, 153 

Armenian troubles, 52, 161, 180, 191 

Austrian policy : towards Bulgaria, 
343-4 ; towards Greece, 271- 
2, 342-5 ; towards Russia, 
175-6, 178-82 ; towards Tur- 
key, 167-82 ; in Albania, 181- 
2, 344 ; in Bosnia, 178, 182, 
192 ; in Macedonia, 181, 344 ; 
alliance with Germany, 179, 
187 ; conservatism, 177 

Bacon, Francis, 80 

Balkan Coalition, 74, 163, 340 ; 

Committee, 315, 326 ; Wars, 

164, 182, 315 
Barton, Edward, 84, 85, 216-7 
Beaconsfield, Lord, 156, 293-4 
Bendyshe, Sir Thomas, 94-8, 100-7, 

124-6 
Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, 9 n. 
Bethmann Hollweg, Herr von, 193 
Biddulph, William, 88, gin., 217 n. 
Bieberstein, Baron Marschall von, 

192-3 
Bismarck, Prince, 184-190, 296 n., 

348-52 
, Count Herbert, 352 



381 



Brtves, M. de, 85-6 

Bruce, James, 149-50, 232-3, 240 

Bulgarian rising, 71 ; alliance with 

Servia, 75 n. ; atrocities, 156 ; 

coup, 159-60, 298 ; Exarchate, 

336 ; part in the European 

War, 361-71 
Burke, Edmund, 153-4 n - 
Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin de, 4, 169-71 
Byron, Lord, 148 n., 255, 263, 275, 

332, 347 n. 

Canning, George, 267-9, 275, 333 
Cantemir, Prince Demetrius, 38-9 
Capitulations, 3-5, 33, 41, 47, 82, 83, 

87, 96, 108, no, 119 
Capodistrias, Count, 261, 270. 
Castlereagh, Lord, 267, 275. 
Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 57, 

60, 66-7, 151, 152, 238-41 
Catholic missionaries, 18-21, 37, 41, 

52, 203-14, 327 
Cesy, Count de, 19-20, 27-8, 30, 206- 

9, 220-2 
Chandos, Lord, 36, 117-20 
Charles I, of Spain, 17 

Charles I, of England, 92, 99, 133, 

221, 226 

II, 83, 96, 107, 109, in, 227 

Charles Louis, Archduke, 178 

Chateaubriand, 214 

Chateauneuf, M. de, 37 

Church, Sir Richard, 266 

Cochrane, Lord, 266 

Codrington, Admiral, 269, 275 

Constans, M., 52 

Constantine, King, 353, 358 foil. 

Coundouriotis, Admiral, 377 

Covel, John, 13 n., 231 

Crete, conquest of, 21, 104, 172 ; 

question of, 289-93, 296, 305- 

10, 320, 336, 338, 348, 349, 
350, 35i 

Crew, Lord, 164 

Crimea, conquest of, 65, 67 ; Crimean 

War, 48, 71, 153, 279, 283, 

323 
Cromwell, Oliver, 97-8, 106-7 
Crow, Sir Sackville, 92-4 
Cyprus, ceded to England, 157, 199, 

322; offered to Greece, 363 
Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch, 205-9, 218- 

27 

Danglis, General, 377 

Dardanelles, 36, 42, 45, 200, 359-62 

Delacroix, Eugene, 318 



382 



INDEX 



Delyannis, M., 308 
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 133-6 
Dimitracopoulos, M., 373, 375 
Don Pacinco, 278, 282, 319 
Duckworth, Admiral, 45, 152 

Egypt, Europeans in, 7-8 ; Napo- 
leon's invasion of, 44, 152 ; 
French designs on, 46, 47, 
50-1 ; English occupation of, 

5i» 159 

Elizabeth, Queen, 76-9, 84, 128, 315 

Elliot, Sir Henry, 72, 155 

■ , Hon Arthur, 296 n., 323 n. 

English Colonies in Turkey, 88, 91, 
94 foil., 231-2, 251-2; estim- 
ates of the Turk, 145-8 ; 
of the Greek, 230-1, 252, 
254-5, 315-7; pirates, 128 
foil. ; policy towards Tur- 
key, 77-80, 144, 150 foil., 
193 foil. ; towards the Greeks, 
215 foil., 257, 267 foil., 31 1-5 ; 
towards Bulgaria, 160, 298, 314 
-5 ; towards France, 81 foil., 
137 n., 139, 158, 162 ; to- 
wards Germany, 162 ; to- 
wards Russia, 61, 151, 153-4, 
156-7, 161-3, 199, 235, 268 ; 
trade, 41, 144, 235 ; traits, 
143, 148-9, 23m., 315-6 

Enver Pasha, 194 

Epirus, 159, 273, 279, 287, 289, 293, 
296, 299, 322, 344, 349 

Eugene, Prince, 173-4 

Fallmerayer, Professor, 345-7 

Ferdinand, of Austria, 167-8 

, of Bulgaria, 344 

Ferriol, Baron de, 38-9 

Finch, Sir John, 13 n., 25-7, 110-9, 
227 

Finlay, George, 40, 332, 345 n. 

Fournet, Admiral du, 372, 378 

Francis I, of France, 17 

Francis Joseph, of Austria, 180 

Frederick the Great, 182-4 

French attitude, towards the Greeks, 
202 foil., 251, 254, 256-7, 270, 
280, 318-30, 359 foil. ; to- 
wards the Turks, 17-53 i 
towards the English, 81- 
91, 95, 129, 135, 137, I39-4I, 
320-2 ; towards Germany, 
49, 51, 188, 323 ; towards 
Russia, 49, 53 ; policy, in 
Syria and Egypt, 44, 46-7, 50- 
2 ; in Lebanon, 48 ; in 
Tunis, 50 ; Revolution, 43, 
67, 248, 3r8 ; temperament, 
18, 202 ; trade, 41-2 

Freycinet, M. de, 51, 322 



Gambetta, 322 

George I, of Greece, 288, 289, 296 n., 
310, 303, 308, 31m., 322 

, Prince, of Greece, 305, 309, 338 

Ill, of England, 61, 151 

German policy, towards Greece, 
348-55, 358, 368 ; towards 
Turkey, 182-193, 194-200, 
348-54 ; towards Bulgaria, 
354-5 ; Russia, 185-7 J in 
Asia Minor, 190 and note 

Germigny, M. de, 81 

Gladstone, 156 and note, 281-3, 294- 
5, 297, 302-3, 306-7, 312 

Glover, Sir Thomas, 82, 86-91, 217 

Goltz, Colman von der, 189 

Goluchowski, Count, 344 

Gortchakoff, Prince, 178 n., 186, 187, 
336 

Goschen, Lord, 158-9, 187, 294-6, 

348-9 
Gounaris, M., 361 

Granville, Lord, 295, 337, 349, 350 
Greek attitude, towards Austria, 342, 
355 ; towards Bulgaria, 297, 
299, 368, 369, 371 ; towards 
England, 230, 232, 250, 253, 
260, 275, 277, 280, 287-9, 
297, 312, 317 ; towards Ger- 
many, 347, 355, 358 ; towards 
Russia, 236-42, 332, 336, 
338, 341, 360 ; towards 
European War, 358 foil. ; 
alliance with Servia, 357 ; 
Church, 205, 208, 215, 218, 
221, 225, 228, 231, 233, 245, 
257, 282, 335 ; Great Idea, 
283, 285, 338, 359 ; Language 
Question, 338-40 ; position in 
Macedonia, 312-4, 326, 338, 
344, 357, 365, 368, 37i ; 
War of Independence, 262 
foil. ; Wars with Turkey, 
308, 310, 315 ; with Bulgaria, 
315 ; temperament, 202, 315 
Gregory, Patriarch, 262 
Grey, Sir Edward, 165, 197, 200 
Guilleragues, M. de, 25-7, 35-6. 

Harborne, William, 76, 81 

Hart wig, M., 74 

Haye, Denis de la, 30-4 

, Jean de la, 30-1 

Henry VIII, of England, 77 

Hobart, Admiral, 155, 156, 291, 321, 

Hohenlohe, Prince, 191 

Holland, Sir Henry, 255 

Hopf, Carl, 346 

Hugo, Victor, 318 

Hyde, Sir Henry, 95-6, 100 

Ibrahim Pasha, 265, 269, 270 
Ignatieff, General, 71, 72, 336 



INDEX 



383 



Ionian Islands, 67, 256-8, 280-3, 287, 

289 
Ipser Pasha, 123-6, 139-41 

James I, of England, 80, 131-2, 217, 

221, 225 
Jenkinson, Anthony, 76m, 79 
Jerusalem, 46, 204, 205, 229 
Jesuits, 19-20, 52, 205-10, 218-24, 

226 

Kalnoky, Count, 344 
Kalogeropoulos, M., 375 
Kavalla, 330, 341, 371, 376 
Kara Mustafa 36, no, n 3-21, 172-3 
Kuprili, Ahmed, 31-35, no, 113, 228 
, Mohammed, 30-1, 70 



Lambros, Professor, 375 

Lawrence, Richard, 97 

Layard, Sir Henry, 155, 157 n., 294 

Lebanon, 48 

Lello, Henry, 85-91, 129-31, 217 

Leopold, Emperor, 172 

, Prince, 273, 290 

Levant Company, 41, 76 n., 79, 80, 
92-3, 97-8, 119, 126, 133 n., 
139, 145, 151, 219, 235 and 
note 

Lithgow, William, 6, 230 

Louis XIV, of France, 25, 39, 40 

XV, of France, 43 

Lowther, Sir Gerard, 161, 193 

Lyons, Lord, 157 n., 323 



Macedonia, 73-4, 181, 256, 313-5, 
325-6, 344, 357, 363-71 

Mahmud I, Sultan, 57 

II, Sultan, 70 

Maison, General, 271, 319 

Mallet, Sir Louis, 194 n., 198 

Malta, Knights of, 3, 34, 136 

Malvezzy, 168 

Manesty, Samuel, 44 

Marcheville, Count de, 28-30 

Maundrell, Henry, 146-7 n. 

Meletios, Patriarch, 216-7 

Mesolonghi, 265-6 

Metaxa, 219-26 

Metternich, Prince, 176-7, 267, 271-2, 
342 

Midhat Pasha, 71 n., 72, 155, 185, 
336 

Mohammed III, Sultan, 171 

Ali, 47, 68, 265, 289, 290 

Moldavia, 56, 65, 261-2 

Morea, 174, 238-41, 262, 265, 270-1 

Moulin, M., 49, 185 

Moustier, M. de, 320 

Moiiy, M. de, 324 

Munnich, Field-marshal, 56 



Murad II, Sultan, 9 

IV, Sultan, 70 

Murray, John, 60-2 

Napoleon I, 44-7, 67, 152, 247, 250, 
256-7 

Louis, 319 

Navarino, Battle of, 152, 269 
Nelidow, M., 15 n., 49 n., 72 n., 336 
Nelson, Lord, 152 
Nesselrode, Count, 261, 334 
Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, 266 

, Prince, of Greece, 357 n. 

Nointel, M. de, 22, 34-5, 228 
Novi Bazar 179, 187 

Obreskoff, Alexis, 58-63 
OrlofE, Admiral, 238-40, 332 
Otho, King of Greece, 273, 279, 
283-7, 379 

Palmerston, Lord, 153, 155 n., 272, 

277-8, 294, 320 
Panayotis, Dragoman of the Porte, 

228 
Panslavism, 71, 334-5, 338, 340 
Parga, 258-60 

Peter the Great, 55, 68, 237, 238 
Phanariotes, 245, 247 
Pitt, William, 151, 153, 267 
Porter, Sir James, 5, 10, n, 13 n., 

41 n., 56, 143, 148, 234-5 and 

note 

Quesne, Admiral de, 25-7, 36, 119 

Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de, 154, 
157 n., 199 

Rhigas, Poet, 249, 342 

Ricaut, Sir Paul, 5, 13 n., 15, I43~5» 
231 

Roe, Sir Thomas, 13 n., 19-20, 69 n., 
215 n., 218-26, 230 

Rumbold, Sir Horace, 300-1, 302, 
304, 343 

Russell, Lord John, 273, 320 

, Lord Odo, 295 

Russian policy, towards the Greeks, 
237-42, 246-7, 261, 268, 331- 
41 ; towards Bulgaria, 159, 
298, 336, 341 ; towards Tur- 
key, 54-75, 162 ; Wars with 
Turkey, 75 n. and passim. 

St. Hilaire, Barth61emy, 332 
Salignac, Baron de, 86-88, 90 
Salisbury, Earl of, 88, 89, 90, 132 

, Marquisof, 158, 162, 180, 277 n., 

_ 293, 298, 299, 301, 306, 312 
Salonica, 36, 49, 73, 185 and note, 

363, 365, 374, 376 
Sandys, George, 7, 18 n., 205, 230 
Sarrail, General, 368-9, 374 



3«4 



INDEX 



Sazonoff, M., 164 

Sebastiani, General, 15 n., 45 

Selim III, Sultan, 70 

Sensi, Sieur, 27 

Servia, 71, 75 n., 256, 314, 356, 357-8, 

363 
Seven Towers, 15, 25, 27, 31, 6i, 62, 

113, 168, 226 
Shirley, Sir Anthony, 79, 81 

, Sir Robert, 80 

, Sir Thomas, 132, 133 n. 

Skouloudis, M., 365, 367, 369, 370 

Smyrna, 95, 99-102, 241, 295 

Sobieski, King of Poland, 173 

Spain, 77, 78, 81 

Stanley, Lord, 291 

Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan, 

76 n., 167 
Syria, 42, 46, 48, 50, 51, 152, 335 

Thessaly, 159, 273, 279, 287, 289, 
293-6, 299, 348-9 

Thevenot, M. de, 1, 8n., 23, 135 n., 
210 

Thornton, Thomas, 346, 347 n. 

Tolstoi, Russian Resident, 69 

Tott, M. de, 42-3 

Tournefort, 21-3, 39 n., 210-2 

Treaty of Adrianople, 68, 272 ; 
of Amiens, 44, 256 ; of Bel- 
grade, 175, 246 ; of Berlin, 
73, i57, 160, 165, 293, 298, 
313 ; of Bucharest, 330, 341, 
357; of Carlowitz, 55, 174; 
of J assy, 67 ; of Kainarji, 
63, 65, 67, 246 ; of London, 
268 ; of Paris, 48, 50, 71, 
156 n., 180; of Passarowitz, 
174 ; of San Stefano, 73, 157, 
293, 313 ; of Sitvatorok, 171 ; 
of Tilsit, 45, 184, 256 



Tricoupis, M., 303, 308, 313, 328, 338 

Tripoli pirates, 25, 26 

Tunis, 50, 158, 188 

Turkish attitude towards Europeans, 
1-16 ; policy in the European 
War, 194-200; reforms, 70- 
2, 74 ; relations with Aus- 
tria, 167-82 ; with England, 
76-166 ; with France, 17-53 '» 
with Germany, 182-93 ; with 
Russia, 54-75 ; temperament, 
1, 18, 147-9 '. theory on 
origin of the English, 149 

Urquhart, David, 275-6 

Venetians, 35, 37, 89, 94 n., 104, 
106, 131, 134-7, i74, 201, 203 

Venizelos, M., 328, 358-78 

Vergennes, M. de, 43, 47, 58 

Vienna, sieges of, 167, 172 ; Congress 
of, 258 

Villeneuve, Marquis de, 41 

Virmont, Count de, 41 

Volney, C. F., 42, 213 

Voltaire, 213 

Waddington, M., 49, 322 
Wellington, Duke of, 268, 270-2, 

279, 290 
White, Sir William, 298-9, 337 
William II, Emperor, 190-2, 353~4 
Winchilsea, Lord, 39, 69 n., 83, 108 
Wyche, Sir Peter, 93, 99-100, 226 

Young Turks, 74, 161-3, 166, 192, 

193 
Ypsilantis, Prince Alexander, 261, 
262, 342 

Zaimis, M., 363, 365, 370, 372 



\ 



RD- 95- r/d 



Printed lor Robert Scott. Publisher, FATBSjiOgiER Bow, London, B,C. fit/ Bwi.ee & Tanner, F»ome 



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